The Hindu Business Line : In love with India

OLAF Van Cleef is an advisor to Cartier on `High Jewellery,' but his association with India goes beyond the introduction of Indian designs in the Cartier portfolio to satisfy the ornate needs of Indian women.

A regular visitor to India ever since he first came to Bombay in 1965 with his grandmother, he just loves the country and has very little patience with westerners, "who can't understand the colours and sounds and smells and everything else about India."

Hailing from the illustrious Van Cleef family, once famous for exporting cheese from France to the Netherlands, the Frenchman is so besotted with India, ranging from its "vibrant colours to its Tandoori food and everything that is made from yoghurt," that he has travelled to different corners of India. But, Kolkata is by far his most favourite city; "Delhi is the city of Babus and Bombay that of Bollywood, but Kolkata is crème-de-la-crème! Here the people are educated and this is a city of people, who, when they buy jewellery, buy a style. When they pick up a jewel they look at it as though they are buying a piece of art," he says.

At present, Van Cleef is in Chennai not on an assignment from Cartier, but to hold his first-ever exhibition of water colours titled "1000 Fire Flies." His paintings are a riot of colours and, as he points out, form "a mosaic" to mirror the ethnic diversity, the different cultures and "a thousand other things" about India.

On the title of his exhibition, Van Cleef, who paints mostly at night, say, "Each morning, I wake up at 3.30 a.m., and at that time when you look out of the window, you see so many lights blinking... its like a thousand fireflies."

On why he chose Chennai, where he hardly knows anybody, to hold his exhibition and not Kolkata which he adores, the Frenchman smiles: "In Kolkata, everybody knows me and would say: `Oh your pictures are so beautiful,' Perhaps, they are horrible. But, in Chennai, where nobody knows me so well, people will be honest and tell me what they think of my pictures. That's very important to me."

The exhibition of the man, who is as comfortable wolfing down Indian food from the roadside stalls at Flora Fountain in Mumbai, as he is offering you coffee at an expensive suite in Taj Coromandel hotel, opens at Sarala's Art Centre and will be on till October 20.

Article E-Mail :: Comment :: Syndication :: Printer Friendly Page

Stories in this Section
HQ Link to hold three trade fairs in Hyderabad

Cartoon