She is elegance personified - not just in her impeccable appearance and cheerful countenance, but in her unsullied dealings with artists and collectors. It would be difficult to find someone who speaks ill of Pheroza Godrej or Cymroza, the art gallery she founded 35 years ago. No wonder the anniversary celebrations, marked by a unique exhibition entitled A Work of Art - A Work on Paper, drew a considerable crowd of appreciative artists and well-wishers. Apart from painters and sculptors, her gallery has the distinction of identifying and nurturing a number of lithographers, ceramicists and photographers who have gone on to achieve international recognition for the excellence she first recognised.

Not many know this, but Pheroza herself studied Fine Arts for three years besides pursuing a degree in English Literature. As a student, she found there was a paucity of exhibition space for young artists - since established art galleries were committed to the senior artists they were promoting... and that prompted her to launch Cymroza (a combination of the names of her brother Cyrus, her mother Mitha, and her father Feroz). "I contributed the 'a'," she acknowledges with a laugh.

Art critic, Ranjit Hoskote pays tribute in his own inimitable style when he writes in the catalogue essay for this landmark show: "A gallery is not simply an empty cube in which paintings may be hung, sculptures put on display, or installations set up... it is a space defined by the varied interactions between artist and viewer, eye and image, surface and touch, the embrace of a historical context and the invented architecture and dispositions of the exhibition. Only when a gallery renders such moments of creative engagement possible does it find its truest fulfilment." That Cymroza Art Gallery has adopted this mandate for its own is really a compliment to its enterprising first lady, Pheroza Godrej.