Art at Babur
Babur’s art collection began before our restaurant was rebuilt in 2005, with Rasi Chakra, the large kalamkari by A K Das in the reception area. This piece was, in fact, the inspiration for rebuilding Babur as you see it now. We subsequently acquired his Tarang, hanging in the stairwell, and he kindly agreed to make a design based on this piece for our menu folders.
Sian Lester designed and executed her two suede and leather triptychs while the re-construction was underway and these were hung before we re-opened. There is a great tradition of leatherwork in India, where Sian has travelled and absorbed the artistic influences of the Subcontinent.
We celebrated our 25th anniversary by commissioning two further pieces of art. Lasting Impressions was commissioned from Kate Pritchard, who had previously made our oversized, Indian-style papier-mâché Christmas baubles. She took her inspiration for this piece from her first trip to India.
And, after 25 years in business, we thought it was time that our guests knew something about Babur himself, the first Moghul Emperor of India. This resulted in our Baburnama Scroll painting by Durga Devi Talukdar, showing scenes from Babur’s eventful life as told by himself in his autobiography.
But our largest commission by far, commemorating our 30th anniversary, is the 45-meter long outdoor mural adjacent to the restaurant by Matt McGuiness, a food lover, artist and co-founder of Gourmandizing London who works in a graphic-design style. In this enormous piece Matt has illustrated little-known, interesting and humorous facts about Indian spices.