Artist      

B R Pandit & family
Pottery is a language that the five-member Pandit family across two generations speaks innately and passionately; it is a craft that bonds the family together. One of India’s most distinguished potters, Bramhdeo Ram Pandit or Panditji as he is respectfully known, and his wife Devkiji, come from families of traditional potters in Bihar with an inheritance of long-established forms and techniques. He moved to Mumbai in 1971 via the KVIC Central Village Pottery Institute at Khanapur (1970) and a working stint with L R Ajgaonkar. He also studied semi-formally at the Handicraft Teacher Training College, Mumbai (1973) at the J J School of Art, Mumbai (1975), at Regional Pottery Training Centre, Bhadrawati (1975), at Garhi, New Delhi (1981), and Workshop training in Japan (1989). In Mumbai Panditji built his studio in Bhayander, now an impressive three-storeyed factory that creates glazed tableware for premium hotel chains and lifestyle stores. His sons, Abhay and Shailesh, trained at home under their parents and then went on to train at Golden Bridge Pottery, Pondicherry. In 2005 Abhay apprenticed under Peter Fraser Beard in UK, on a Charles Wallace Scholarship. Abhay married Khushboo, a trained painter but also from a family of potters, and on his return from the UK, introduced his mother and wife to the beauty of smoke-firing that he was exposed to in the works of Ashraf Hanna, Tim Andrews and David Roberts that he saw in the UK. An acknowledged master of glazes, B R Pandit’s work is distinguished by his sparkling red copper-reduction glazed pots, the mottled blue soda-fired glazed pots and chatter-marked pots. Abhay and Shailesh are strong in thrown forms. While Abhay creates textures with wire-cut techniques and tools and by adding fine strips of clay, Shailesh brings out different colours on his pots, especially Celadon, inspired by his visits to Thailand and Malaysia. Devkiji and Khushboo work together on the Raku smoke-firing technique, burnishing leather-hard pots with patience, applying resist on bisque-fired surfaces and then allowing smoke to play its role in imbuing the hues and patterns on their pots.
The Pandit family lives and works in Mumbai.