In 1971, a new art gallery opened in South Bombay’s Breach Candy precinct, styling itself as a “gallery for young people” and located away from the Flora Fountain-Kala Ghoda axis of the city’s art world. Remarkably, the Cymroza Art Gallery’s founder, Pheroza Shroff (later Godrej), was in her early twenties. A young painter and student of English Literature, her commitments spanned a range of cultural domains, including the visual arts, literature, music, theatre, and civic participation. She had the complete support of her progressive family, and gave the gallery a composite name formed from theirs: ‘Cy’ for her brother Cyrus; ‘m’ for her mother Mitha; ‘roz’ for her father Phiroze and ‘a’ for herself. From its earliest years, Cymroza would embrace artists, musicians, writers, cultural producers and viewers of every temperament and milieu into an expanding family. In the 1970s, Cymroza acted as a lively multi-arts forum for youth culture. During the 1980s, it was a forerunner of the commercial galleries that would emerge in Mumbai during the next two decades.

Cymroza pioneered the patronage of textile artists, ceramicists, printmakers and photographers, at a time when these practitioners received little support for their work. In the domain of painting and sculpture, too, Cymroza adopted an eclectic approach, extending itself towards painters of diverse styles, approaches and regional locations, without remaining confined to a canonical narrowness. Cymroza was also keenly attentive to the importance of critical engagement and documentation, producing both exhibition texts as well as an annual catalogue with essays and reproductions, thus establishing a consistent chronological record of its activity and the trajectories of its artists.

The Cymroza Chronicles charts the five decades of the Cymroza Art Gallery’s journey through a rich trove of archival materials, including photographs of opening receptions and exhibitions, correspondence, invitation cards, announcements, visitors’ books and catalogues.

(Text by Ranjit Hoskote)