ITC traces history in brush strokes - Financial Chronicle
February 15, 2011
If what was once a thriving but persecuted tobacco company is today a conglomerate with a booming FMCG business, it's because of ITC's ability to constantly reinvent itself.
And twenty one canvases may not just be enough to trace the evolution, growth and the reinventions of a company over a period of 100 years. Nevertheless, ITC Ltd in its centenary year, is up to portraying its history and transformation from a tobacco major to FMCG leader and a diversified conglomerate with brush strokes. WelcomeArt, an initiative of ITC Hotels has taken up the task of holding this unique painting exhibition at ITC Sonar.
An ITC spokesperson told Financial Chronicle that ITC had in fact commissioned Swaroop Mukherji, a famed painter on the occasion of the ITC Centenary to come up with some of the masterpieces on canvas.
And on display at ITC Hotel will be: 'Virginia House' - ITC's Headquarters since 1928, 'Burra Bungalow' at Basdeopur Park, ITC's residential campus in Munger, ITC's Printing & Packaging Unit at Tiruvottiyur, near Chennai, 'Kaya Kalp' - The Royal Spa at ITC Mughal, Agra, A pulpwood plantation under ITC's Social Forestry Programme in Khammam District, Andhra Pradesh, ITC Guest House at Chirala, ITC's state-of-the-art cigarette factory at Devanahalli, Karnataka, ITC R&D Centre at Bengaluru, Wills Lifestyle Store in New Delhi, ITC Infotech Park at Bengaluru, Farmers at an ITC e-Choupal (Two paintings), ITC Green Centre, Gurgaon - headquarters of ITC's Hotels Business, An ITC-assisted Supplementary Learning Centre at Venkatapuram Village, Andhra Pradesh, An ITC Watershed Development Project at Annavanam Village, Andhra Pradesh, ITC Sonar, Kolkata, ITC Sangeet Research Academy, Kolkata, Farmers at an ITC e-Choupal, ITC Residential Park at Tiruvottiyur and ITC Factory at Munger, she said.
Inspired by French Impressionists like Van Gogh, Monet, Manet, Renoir, Mukherji promises to evoke an instant nostalgia and yearning with water colours, pen and ink, acrylics, oils and mixed media, leaving viewers to savour the timelessness of human enterprise and institution.
A Mukherji painting immediately strikes the viewer with juxtaposition of the magnificent with the mundane. From urban splendor to crumbling palaces, he captures the rhythms of everyday life as he remains on site to complete each painting. And that's one of the prime reasons for commissioning him for this special purpose and occasion, the spokesperson said.
All these paintings will be ITC Ltd's properties and will be kept and preserved by the company.
