Jehangir Sabavala's demise marks the end of an age - of grace and generosity, of affability and etiquette. Ever the gentleman artist, Sabavala plumbed the resources of a style that did not admit too many changes; he explored themes, which were not too varied, with great consistency and confidence. Drawing inspiration from the natural world, he employed Cubist forms and techniques to limn landscapes imbued with shifting radiances - his mountainscapes and riverscapes, with hooded mendicants and itinerants, always seemed to carry a touch of mystery. His figures, more often than not, seemed caught in intense interior meditations. The art fraternity shall miss him.

In this issue, we carry reviews of artrelated books that are welcome additions to the bookshelf. While I leaf through Barefoot Across the Nation, Sumathi Ramaswamy's excellent compilation of essays on M. F. Husain, Rahul Srivastava critically responds to the complicated relationship between Photography and Anthropology explored by Christopher Pinney. Gita Chadha assesses whether A Masterful Spirit and The TIFR Art Collection do justice to scientist Homi J. Bhabha's extraordinary profile as an art connoisseur while Shiladitya Sarkar appreciates the way Kajri Jain traces the circulation of calendar art in Gods In The Bazaar. Amrita Gupta Singh finds a lot to admire in the theses presented by Partha Mitter in his The Triumph of Modernism while Subuhi Jiwani is not entirely convinced by a Bengali scrollartist's collaboration with an African- American performance poet and an Italian designer in I See The Promised Land, a graphic biography of Martin Luther King Jr. Geeta Doctor breezes through Yashodhara Dalmia's twovolume collection of interviews with modern and contemporary Indian artists as Preeti Goel Sanghi moves through diverse built spaces in Rahul Mehrotra's Architecture In India Since 1990. In the Interview, Kamal Swaroop discusses his multi-disciplinary approach to researching the life and times of Dadasaheb Phalke, among other things. We carry the cover of his scrap-book, A Journey: The Phalke Chronofile: 1870-1944 on our cover.

Do write back with your responses to the issue. The fact that you liked the Book Reviews issue last year provided us with the motivation to come out with one this year.

Warm regards,
Abhay Sardesai