Description :

Born into an aristocratic family in 1940, Mohite took up the paintbrush at a remarkably young age, holding his first show at the age of seven. It is no surprise that he gravitated towards painting so early in his life. Growing up in the lee of the Maharaja of Gwalior’s patronage of and his own family’s passion for culture, he was steeped in classical music and modern art. Musicians frequented the Mohites’ haveli; on winter mornings, his grandfather would wrap the little boy in a blanket and carry him to stand beneath a window so he could listen to the riyaaz of maestros in residence. Visual artists such as Bombay School exponents M. R. Acharekar, V. B. Pathare, Govind Solegaonkar, A. A. Almelkar and D.D. Deolalikar were also regular visitors. Deolalikar introduced Mohite to his first art teacher – an instructor at a local art school – whom he would closely observe at practice and paint landscapes with, culminating in his first solo in 1947.                                   

Coming of age soon after, Mohite left Gwalior. Between the late 1950s  and mid-1960s, he lived briefly in Bombay as a student at the JJ School of Art’s Commercial Art department – a traumatizing experience for a youth brought up in the countryside, his only sanctuary being artist V. R. Amberkar's studio – before moving to Lucknow as a guest of the Maharaja of Samthar, a classmate of his late father. There, on a lark, he joined the local flying club, donning overalls and learning the mechanics of airplanes, indulging his love for working with his hands. While he never flew the machines, some of his paintings render the drama and dromos of motion almost as optical illusions, relying on both distance and persistence of vision for hints of topographies and figures to emerge.

Throughout his itinerant years, Mohite continued to paint. By the 1970s, resettled in Gwalior, he had arrived at an improvisational vocabulary of abstraction, aided by his adoption of acrylic – then a relatively new, quick-drying and dynamic medium that suited his spontaneous approach. This period was the heyday of the abstract idiom in Indian modernism, when painters like V. S. Gaitonde, Bal Chhabda and Ambadas Khobragade, as well as the Neo-Tantrics were active. Mohite’s expressive play of form and space imparted a distinct character to his practice, reflecting both his musical sensibility and mechanical curiosity. 

Though he withdrew from public exhibition at the brink of recognition, Mohite continued to paint profusely in his ancestral haveli, accompanied by classical ragas and in dialogue with the surrounding landscape. A keen birdwatcher, he spent these decades photographing birds in the woods near Gwalior, their bright plumage and kinematics echoing his paintings.

Excerpt from text by Kamayani Sharma