Six decades before it became the muse of a cleanliness-seeking lawyer, Versova beach was the favoured haunt of a fenugreek seeking artist. In the mid-1960s, perpetually-paintcarrying, Europe-trained contemporary artist K K Hebbar would visit the beach often with his family to buy locally-grown fenugreek leaves.
On one such occasion, even as fishermen were drying fish around him, a German woman saw the JJ School of Art protege quickly etch the mostly-blue-sky-and-yellow-sand landscape on the back of a Lalit Kala Akademi invitation card. This spontaneous drawing led to an untitled 1965 canvas which is now among over 80 prized Indian artworks belonging to German octogenarian Ute Rettberg, that are being sold at a Sotheby's London auction.
