By: Express News ServiceNovember 5, 2025 12:25 AM IST 3 min readAmbalal, coming from a textile mill-owning family, was expected to continue the family legacy as the managing director of the mill, which he sold in 1979 to become an artist. Ambalal was one of the guests at the art show that opened Tuesday and will be on at the gallery till November 9.At the far end of the gallery, a lithograph in bold lines on a sepia-tinted background stands out. This is a portrait of legendary artist MF Husain, by well-known physicist Homi Bhabha made in 1961.The 15th edition of Ahmedabad-based art collector and curator Anil Relia’s personal collection titled ‘The Indian Portrait’ that opened at the Amdavad ni Gufa gallery on Tuesday, featured a range of artists from 1850 to 2025, with the collector giving a personalised walk-through to the visitors.Apart from Bhabha’s drawing of Husain, there was Husain’s painting of Bollywood thespian Dilip Kumar, Vrindavan Solanki’s portrait of journalist Khushwant Singh in charcoal, the 1891 Raja Ravi Varma piece on Nalibai Marwanji Mehta, wife of a prominent Parsi businessman in her regalia, self portraits of Ahmedabad-based Amit Ambalal, Vadodara’s maverick artists Bhupen Khakhar and Rekha Rodwittiya, Atul Dodiya and Anju Dodiya, Manu Parekh and several others, majority of whom Relia knows personally.“It feels like a homecoming, a gathering of familiar faces both of the artist and the art”, writes Relia in a note.These are part of Relia’s archives of works by modern and contemporary artists collected from various parts of the country.There is also a painting by Nabibakhsh Mansoori of Relia, during the construction of his home Amrat, featuring the swing that is part of most Gujarati homes. “This was made when I was building my dream home to make space for my collection…the swing shown on the page of a diary is where Husain, Raza (SH) and several other artists have sat at my home”, says Relia, as he guides visitors through the tour.“There you can see Bhupen Khakhar painting the ‘Man with plastic flowers’, and the shadow showing him leaving his mortal body”, Relia says describing the large canvas by Birendra Pani, a tribute to the late artist titled ‘Beyond Duality’.Story continues below this adThe show also told the stories through the artworks like that of Khakhar who quit a career as a chartered accountant to paint; Of Ambalal – a self portrait in oil on canvas titled ‘The Dynastic Chair’ depicting himself in a shirt-and-tie seated behind a “Director’s desk” reflecting the artist’s “inner conflict”.Ambalal, coming from a textile mill-owning family, was expected to continue the family legacy as the managing director of the mill, which he sold in 1979 to become an artist. Ambalal was one of the guests at the art show that opened Tuesday and will be on at the gallery till November 9.Stay updated with the latest - Click here to follow us on Instagram© The Indian Express Pvt LtdTags:ahmedabad