I think I’m finally at a point where I can say I’m confident about this,” Tara Lal humbly chuckles, discussing the inevitable imposter syndrome that got the better of her through the years running the Colaba-based art gallery Chatterjee & Lal with husband Mortimer Chatterjee. As the duo celebrate 20 years in the business, they recall how they met while working at a British auction house in Delhi in the early noughties. “We’d discuss how we wanted to work with artists our own age…,” she recalls, “artists who were still alive so we could interact with them. We chose Bombay because I wanted to move out of Delhi after living there for 32 years, and Mort was quite entrenched in the art market here.”  

At the time, the landscape of art galleries in the city was a stark contrast to today, with only a few spaces sporadically showcasing young contemporary artists, mostly in group shows. “We wanted to add our voice to that ecosystem,” Chatterjee says, explaining how they registered their gallery name in April 2003, followed by their wedding a little over a year later.