In celebration of Indian Independence Day 2015, Stellar collaborated with Paresh Maity to bring the ‘Shesh Lekha’ series to five key locations across India.
Shesh Lekha – known as the Last Writings – is a group of 15 poems written by honoured poet laureate and artist Rabindranath Tagore. The series is made up of 15 large-scale watercolours, 15 accompanying drawings and 15 calligraphy writings of the poems translated into English by Pritish Nandy.
Supported by Hyatt Hotels in India, this was the first time the series had been shown since its premier at Delhi’s National Gallery of Modern Art in 2011 and Stellar International Art Foundation’s first country-wide showcase of work from its art collection.
Created to mark the Nobel Laureate’s 150th anniversary, who was a source of great inspiration for Maity, the series was created as a tribute to the Laureate’s original Shesh Lekha series of poems, which were written during the last months of his life. The serenity and poise of these poems is echoed in the landscape series from Maity.
The presentation is unique in that it unites the entire country, distributing the series across five of India’s major cities Amritsar, Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Hyderabad and Pune, but equally bringing together the same by celebrating the same ethos behind the poems and their equally powerful painterly interpretations by Maity.
Of the series the artist said:
“Working on this series took me into another world. It was a totally different experience.”
