The next inspirational Woman that we have is Anjolie Ela Menon, one of India’s leading Contemporary Artist. She was awarded with Padma Shree Award in the year 2000 for her contribution towards the field of Art. She is a well known muralist.
By the age of 15, when she left school, she had already sold a few paintings. Thereafter, she briefly studied at the Sir J.J. Institute of Applied Art, Mumbai and later earned a degree in English literature from Delhi University, where she studied at the women’s college, Miranda House. At 18, she held a solo exhibition with fifty-three paintings of a variety of styles. She obtained a French Government scholarship to study at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris from 1959 to 1961. She travelled extensively in Europe and West Asia studying Romanesque and Byzantine art. During 1980-81, the Governments of France, U.K. and US invited her to pursue further studies.
Ms. Menon’s paintings are in several major collections, including the NGMA, the Chandigarh Museum and the Peabody Essex Museum. In 2006, her triptych work “Yatra” was acquired by the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco, California. Her other works also been a part of group exhibitions including ‘Kalpana: Figurative Art in India’, presented by the Indian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR) in London’s Aicon Gallery in 2009.
In 1997 she, for the first time displayed non-figurative work, including Buddhist abstracts. She represented India at the Paris, Algiers, and São Paulo Biennales and at three Triennales in New Delhi.
Ms. Menon has done over 35 solo shows and many group shows in India and abroad. In 1968, 1972 and 1975, she performed along with I, II, III International Triennale by Lalit Kala Akademi, with Paris Biennale, France in 1980 and in 1980 at New York and Washington D.C.
In the year 2000, she was nominated to be on the board of trustees of the Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts (IGNCA) — the only visual artist to have ever been nominated. In 2002, her work ‘Four Decades’ was shown in a major exhibition organised by the Vadehra Art Gallery in the National Gallery of Modern Art, Mumbai. The collection eventually toured other prominent galleries in major Indian cities, including the Karnataka Chitrakala Parishath, Bangalore. Her life and work has been featured in several publications and films made for CNN and Doordarshan Channels.
She has been Awarded with Padma Shri, Lifetime Achievement Award from the Delhi State Government, Kalidas Samman for Visual Arts from the Madhya Pradesh Government and was also Felicitated by The Limca Book of Records.
Ms.Menon has had over thirty solo shows including at Black heath Gallery-London, Gallery Radicke-Bonn, Winston Gallery-Washington, Doma Khudozhinkov-USSR, Rabindra Bhavanand Shridharani Gallery-New Delhi, Academy of Fine Arts-Calcutta, the Gallery-Madras, Jehangir Gallery, Chemould Gallery, Taj Gallery, Bombay and Maya Gallery at the Museum Annexe, Hong Kong. A retrospective exhibition was held in 1988 in Bombay and she has participated in several international shows in France, Japan, Russia and USA. In addition to paintings in private and corporate collections, her works have been acquired by museums in India and abroad.
Ms. Menon’s work have been published in Private Collections Hardcover – 15 November 1995 by Isana Murti (Author), Indira Dayal (Compiler), Anjolie Ela Menon (Illustrator) and “Anjolie Ela Menon: Through the Patina,” by Isana Murty, published by Vadhera Art Gallery.
Image Source: Artnet news
Aishwarya Says:
I have always been against Glorifying Over Work and therefore, in the year 2021, I have decided to launch this campaign “Balancing Life”and talk about this wrong practice, that we have been following since last few years. I will be talking to and interviewing around 1 lakh people in the coming 2021 and publish their interview regarding their opinion on glamourising Over Work.
If you are interested in participating in the same, do let me know.
Do follow me on Facebook, Twitter Youtube and Instagram.
The copyright of this Article belongs exclusively to Ms. Aishwarya Sandeep. Reproduction of the same, without permission will amount to Copyright Infringement. Appropriate Legal Action under the Indian Laws will be taken.
If you would also like to contribute to my website, then do share your articles or poems at secondinnings.hr@gmail.com
In the year 2021, we wrote about 1000 Inspirational Women In India, in the year 2022, we would be featuring 5000 Start Up Stories.