How a WW II Polish couple's Kemps Corner studio introduced Mumbai artists to glass mosaics and painted ceramics

MUMBAI: During World War II (1939 to 1945), a number of Jews fleeing Nazi persecution in Europe found refuge in Bombay, and enriched the city's culture and its arts. Musician Walter Kaufmann influenced Indian musicology, Austrian dancer Hilde Holger (later Boman-Behram) established the School of Art for Modern Movement in Fort and Rudolf von Leyden became a prominent art promoter, especially of the Ganjifa cards.
In this mix were Simon Lifschutz and his wife Hanna, a Polish-Jewish refugee couple who established the city's foremost glass and ceramic studio in Kemps Corner. They introduced Mumbai's artists to glass mosaics and painted ceramics, making a significant impact on the art and design scene in Mumbai then. Yet, Lifschutzs and their Studio Vitrum (glass in Latin) have been mostly unknown until now.
A new art exhibition, 'A Glazed History: Badri Narayan and the Vitrum Studio', by the Jehangir Nicholson Art Foundation (JNAF), at the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya (CSMVS), is reintroducing Mumbai to the studio, its artists and their art. It's a culmination of an intensive two-year research and investigation into Studio Vitrum, which took Puja Vaish, the director of JNAF and curator of the show, to archives and art collections across India, to piece together Studio Vitrum's story. 'The exhibition revisits two overlooked chapters in Modern Indian Art—Badri Narayan's legacy and Vitrum Studio's cultural role—as entry points into broader debates on art, design and public space,' says Vaish.
Studio Vitrum (1957-74) was a philanthropic project of the Polish couple's glass factory in Vikhroli called Vitrum. It manufactured glass bottles for pharmacy and cosmetic companies, including Ponds and Nivea. The studio specialised in hand-painted ceramic tiles and glass mosaics, and was later renamed Hexamar Studio. It invited artists to paint on ceramic tiles and create Venetian type of glass mosaic tesserae, as affordable art and home decor objects such as coasters, trays, tabletops and lamps, says Vaish.
These seldom seen objects and a few paintings make up the 102 works displayed in the exhibition. They are sourced from JNAF's collection and from private collectors such as Dadiba Pundole, Pheroza Godrej and Haresh Mehta. Most of these were made by artist Badri Narayan (1929 – 2013). He was, in many ways, the lead artist of the studio, promoting it and getting other artists to work there as well.
Narayan's city scape -- a glass mosaic -- makes for the exhibition's centre piece. Small blue, yellow and red pieces of glass are stuck together to represent a city dotted with big and small, wide and narrow buildings, all fused together, without any breathing room between the structures. 'The work shows Mumbai's suburb of Chembur,' says Dadiba Pundole, an art expert who runs the Pundole gallery and Pundole's auction house. Around the 1970s when the work was made, Narayan was living in Chembur, home to thousands of Partition refugees. The work is from Mehta's collection. Dadiba, though, has a few ceramic plates and bowls on which Narayan has etched similar paintings, which are also displayed in the exhibition.
Another prominent work in glass mosaic by Narayan is based on the theme of the Last Supper, while his painted ceramic tile work showing a watermelon vendor in the foreground of those fused buildings is placed alongside a painting on the same subject.
A wall in the exhibition is dedicated to works of unknown artists – hand-painted, glazed ceramic tiles that depicts a village scene by S.A.M Kazi, another village scene showing women in ghaghra choli by VM Sohoni and a black and white figure of a lady wearing colourful jewellery by Anjali Das. All of these are from 63-year-old businessman Mehta's collection.
In the interim, however, many established artists such as KH Ara, KK Hebbar and AA Raiba worked in the studio. 'It used to be a buzzing space,' says Mehta. He has hundred-plus objects in his personal collection created there, including a ceramic plate of FN Souza. Mehta also published a book on the studio titled 'Vitrum' at the opening of the exhibition on June 13. In its foreword, Pheroza Godrej writes that her family's friends, the Capadias, had rented the ground floor of their Ratton Villa to the studio. She saw artists experiment with glazes, paint tiles and fire the kiln. In the foreword, she says, 'It was not just a space for ceramics, it was a gathering place, a place where parties were held, where friendships were made and where the essence of creativity filled the air.'
Another interesting discovery is that of glass mosaic murals at prominent buildings in Mumbai. 'Many architects would visit artists to make glass and ceramic murals on building facades,' says Vaish. MF Husain did a few – one for the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, another for LIC building in Nariman Point and one for Hindustan Unilever in Churchgate.
Where – JNAF gallery, CSMVS, Kala Ghoda
Date – On view until August 31
Timing – 10.15 am to 6 pm
Museum entry – ₹200 for adults.

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