Tyeb Mehta: Bearing Weight (With the Lightness of Being)

The Kiran Nadar Museum of Art (KNMA) presents Tyeb Mehta: Bearing Weight (With the Lightness of Being), a landmark exhibition marking the birth centenary of one of India’s most influential modernists. Presented in collaboration with the Tyeb Mehta Foundation and Saffronart Foundation, and curated by KNMA’s Artistic Director and Chief Curator, Roobina Karode, the exhibition unfolds as the first-ever comprehensive retrospective of Tyeb Mehta.

From a prelude presented at ART MUMBAI 2025, this exhibition expands at KNMA, New Delhi, into a full- scale introspection, offering a deeper and more extensive engagement with the artists’ life and practice. With more than 120 works spanning Mehta’s prolific career, the exhibition encompasses paintings, drawings, sculptures, film, and archival material that were rarely shown before. It offers a multifaceted view of Mehta’s artistic language and intellectual rigor, tracing the evolution of his visual vocabulary and the recurring concerns that shaped his art.

Born in 1925 in Kapadvanj, Gujarat, Tyeb Mehta's early exposure to image-making came through his family's involvement in the film business, which sparked his lifelong fascination with visual language. Initially drawn to art direction, he went on to study at the Sir JJ School of Art, Bombay (now Mumbai) in 1947, where he discovered the transformative potential of painting, a pursuit that defined his art practice. He spoke about his practice as a complex unfolding - 'The process of painting is not easy for me. I struggle at every step. I destroy many paintings before one finally emerges.' Mehta’s association and friendship with the members of Progressive Artists' Group expanded his understanding of art and its possibilities in a newly independent India.

The core of the exhibition will be some of the iconic series from across Mehta’s career including Falling Figure, Falling Bird, Mahishasura, Kali, Bull, and the Diagonal. They speak of Mehta as a critical witness of life and conflict in post-independent India. Bull, for instance, was a ‘compulsive image’ for the artist beginning from his early days of drawing at Bandra Abattoir in the 1950s to the very last painting he made in 2007. This retrospective also presents Mehta’s fascination with mythical narratives and folklore traditions, particularly the series of work titled Kali, and Mahishasura. A larger body of work also emerged as a response to the events of unrest during and after the Partition in 1947. This along with the onslaught of daily life has unfolded in various ways through the artist’s career.

The exhibition also brings to fore Mehta’s short sixteen minute sixteen seconds film Koodal, which is a deeper artistic reflection on the cycle of life and death, referring to different symbolic and everyday roles of humans, animals and the deities. Translated in Tamil as ‘Meeting Point’ the title of this film speaks about various contradictions of our continuous coexistence. Written and directed by Mehta, and produced by the Film Division of India it was awarded the Filmfare Critics Award in 1970. 

Complementing this expanded view of Mehta’s practice, the exhibition is further enriched by a selection of rarely exhibited archival material that anchors the narrative in lived experience. This includes early works and studies; artist notebooks containing personal notes and writings; photographs documenting key moments with fellow artists and family; exhibition catalogues and invitations spanning his career. Together, they offer new insights into Tyeb Mehta, an artist whose legacy is being unpacked in this granular way for the very first time.

Tyeb Mehta: Bearing Weight (With the Lightness of Being), on view at KNMA Delhi from 5th February to 30th June, 2026. 

Date 2.2.2026