Salem Museum Exhibits Tyeb Mehta

While visiting New York in 1968, Indian painter Tyeb Mehta experienced an epiphany when viewing the work of Barnett Newman in an exhibition at MOMA. As Mehta would recall years later, this artistic encounter marked a distinct change in his approach to painting.

The expressionist, textured brushwork of Mehta’s early work made way for the flat, defined fields of color that later came to signify his style.

Throughout his career, Mehta's paintings focused on the human form and embodied his enduring intention to convey the experience of human dislocation and suffering. The Barnett Newman paintings viewed by Mehta are juxtaposed with a selection of Mehta’s artwork, created both before and after 1968. -- www.pem.org