KATHMANDU
A catalogue on the late Australian artist Robert Powell, who lived in Nepal for 30 years, was launched at The Kalā Salon in Chhaya Center on September 29, ahead of a major Retrospective planned for 2027.
Titled Verisimilitude & Imagination: A Lifetime of Paintings & Drawings, the book is edited by Sophia L Pandé and published with support from the Australian Embassy in Nepal and The
Kalā Salon Foundation. All proceeds from its sales will go directly towards funding the upcoming exhibition.
"Rob was an exceptional artist and, even more importantly, a wonderful human being," Pandé told the gathering, recalling Powell who passed away in 2020. "His untimely passing is something that is mourned by all of us who knew him..."
"It has been over 24 years since Rob's last exhibition, Himalayan Drawings, organised by academic Michael Opppitz in Zurich, and so it has also been 24 years since anything significant has been published on his work," she said.
While the Taragaon Museum exhibited his remaining local works in 2021, Pandé noted that a full lifelong retrospective was long overdue. "It was Rob's final wish to have that retrospective here in Nepal, in a country that he loved and lived in for 30 years," she said.
Pandé shared that she grew up surrounded by Powell's art. "I used to take his prints to college with me to give to my art history professors," she said. The idea for the retrospective began when Caroline Sengupta, an old friend of Powell and Lieve, brought up the artist's desire to do an exhibition in Nepal with Pandé's aunt, Sangeeta Thapa.
"My brain lit up," Pandé recalled. "Rob's name has largely been forgotten in Nepal, though his legacy and work have touched so many brilliant young Nepali artists, and I knew that a Retrospective of his would be immensely important to the artistic community here."
Just before the COVID-19 pandemic, Pandé and her husband, Marco, travelled to Koh Samui to meet Powell and Lieve, after Powell had been forced to leave Nepal due to deteriorating lung health. The initial plan was to host the Retrospective alongside the 2020 Kathmandu Triennale. "COVID disrupted life in so many ways, and Rob passed away later that year," Pandé said.
Speaking on the catalogue's structure, Pandé emphasised her effort to curate diverse perspectives. "I have done my best when structuring it to balance perspectives, across gender and gazes, from Nepal and abroad, from art historians to educationists, curators, and architects, and from the very academic to the personal," she said. "It has not been easy, and it was an enormous amount of work."
The 2027 Retrospective will showcase over 50 original works brought from Belgium alongside Powell's journals. It will also feature around 20 works that remain in Nepal, on loan from the collections of the Shangri-La Hotel, Lisa Choegyal, the Taragaon Museum, and Ludmilla Hungerhuber and Götz Hagmüller.
"The Retrospective will take place here, in this gallery (The Kalā Salon), on both levels and will remain open for six months. We will have talks, walkthroughs, and educational activities around it," Pandé said, adding Enchanted Matter, a documentary on Powell previously screened at the Kathmandu International Mountain Film Festival, will also be shown.
Expressing gratitude to the diplomatic mission, Pandé acknowledged former Australian Ambassador Leann Johnston for taking an initial interest in the proposal, Sanjana Pradhan for shepherding the project, and current Ambassador Simon Ernst for his support.
She also thanked Ernst for understanding keenly that art is diplomacy. She said, "Rob was a proud Australian who loved Nepal, and it is fitting that his legacy has been ensured via this catalogue, funded by the Australian Embassy in Nepal."
The book is available for sale at The Kalā Salon in Chhaya Center and at Vajra Bookstore.