Avinash Chandra - October Gallery

Solo show at The October Gallery. 1981
Date: 7 May, 1981 until 6 June, 1981
Organiser: October Gallery

Solo exhibition of work by Avinash Chandra, held at the October Gallery, London, May 7 - June 5, 1981. The exhibition came with a modest, but nevertheless very important folded brochure with insert. The brochure’s text was written by Balraj Khanna. No exhibition checklist is included, though the brochure’s biographical sections include Commissions, Public & Corporate Collections, and an extensive list of Chandra’s works in private collections. Owners of his work on the list included Honorable Indira Ghandi, the Earl of Harewood, and Mr and Mrs Keith Moon.

From Balraj Khanna’s text: “…But he tired of the Delhi art world where the goals of art were limited, where the art was of classical reserve which stifled innovation. In 1956 he came to London, the most convenient port of entry into the West, and went to lve in Golders Green.

He worked hard and exhibited extensively, both with enormous success. In a newspaper article in 1962, W.G. Archer wrote, “In Britain he felt a gradual sense of liberation. He sloughed his former cautious style. He absorbed modern Western art and in 1958 began to paint instinctively, trusting like Klee, Kandinsky and his predecessor, Tagore, to ‘what was freely given.’

“As he drew and painted, shapes sprang up like fountains, mingled together like rushing streams, thrust upwards like plants or mushrooms and almost exploded into life. This explosive element reminds us of Surrealism and of Andre Breton’s dictum - ‘beauty must be convulsive.’ And in these gay upsurgings of visual thought, Chandra employed a wealth of sensuous images and symbols.””

»  Avinash Chandra - October Gallery - 1981

Brochure relating to an exhibition, 1981