Important Notice

“I work as an individual. I do not have a scientific point of view; it is mostly my total experience of life [and] nature that comes through me, that is manifested on canvas. For me every painting I do is a miracle.” - V S GAITONDE

Private, introspective, and reclusive in nature, V S Gaitonde had an unwavering conviction in his identity as a painter. As art critic Dnyaneshwar Nadkarni notes, he gradually sought to break away from... “I work as an individual. I do not have a scientific point of view; it is mostly my total experience of life [and] nature that comes through me, that is manifested on canvas. For me every painting I do is a miracle.” - V S GAITONDE

Private, introspective, and reclusive in nature, V S Gaitonde had an unwavering conviction in his identity as a painter. As art critic Dnyaneshwar Nadkarni notes, he gradually sought to break away from academia and art movements and isolated himself from everything he considered superfluous to this identity. He turned his focus inwards and spent his lifetime meticulously perfecting his craft over a lengthy creative process, producing a concise but profound body of work.

A graduate of the J J School of Art, Bombay, Gaitonde counted Shankar Palshikar and Jagannath Ahivasi, who taught at the then British-run institution, among his early mentors. Under their influence, he found himself drawn to Basohli and Pahari miniature paintings of the late 17th and 18th centuries and analysed their bold use of colour and line. This study would go on to inform the non-figurative style that became characteristic of his works from the late 1950s onwards.

By 1957, Gaitonde began to break away from figurative compositions and moved to an abstract style that he termed “non-objective”. This transition coincided with his discovery of Western abstraction, particularly European artists such as Wassily Kandinsky and Paul Klee. He especially admired the latter’s expressiveness of line and colour harmonies, remarking, “Rather than saying I was influenced by Paul Klee, it should be said that I was drawn to the wondrous forms, colour combinations, beauty of line drawing in his work.” (The artist quoted in Meera Menezes, Vasudeo Santu Gaitonde: Sonata of Solitude, New Delhi: Bodhana Arts and Research Foundation, 2016, p. 86)

Gaitonde believed in learning through introspection and exposure and was continually “experimenting with painting itself. The creation of texture in an unconventional way, the use of thick lugubrious pigment, the evocation of light and, finally, the subtle balancing of the image on canvas as if it were undulating on water and gradually surfacing in the light...” (Dnyaneshwar Nadkarni, Gaitonde, New Delhi: Lalit Kala Akademi, 1983).

From 1959, he began to favour oil as a medium, using a roller and palette knife to create thick layers of paint and add texture to his compositions. “On his large canvases, he would often scoop the paint onto a palette knife and apply it to the surface. Then, instead of preserving what he had already created, he would charge into the previous stroke using a different colour, thereby producing another colour situation. Such was the confidence imbued by the work that [Krishen] Khanna felt justified in proclaiming that Gaitonde’s ‘whole painting life was dedicated to finding these new painting situations.’” (Menezes, p. 115)

The present lot was completed in 1972, at the peak of Gaitonde’s career and a year after he was awarded the Padma Shri by the Government of India. Featuring a vibrant yellow palette, it is proof of his astute understanding of colour, structure, texture, and light. “The canvases from the 1970s and early ’80s exude a sense of balance and vitality. There is an exactitude at work here, as the artist is able to both essentialize the process of his paintings and the forms contained therein, as well as build them up through intuitive responses and a masterful handling of texture and colour… In each case, the lines, colours, and forms of the paintings extend to the edge of the canvas, breaking down any sense of illusionism or depth and abolishing figure and ground.” (Sandhini Poddar, V S Gaitonde: Painting as Process, Painting as Life, New York: The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, 2014, p. 30)

The present lot also exhibits key stylistic choices that Gaitonde made during this period, including a preference for a vertical format and experiments with a “lift-off” process involving torn magazine and newspaper cut-outs, from which he would transfer painted shapes onto his canvas with the help of rollers. The artist used palette knives to erase portions of paint and masking tape to mark the borders of his works. “The ensuing abstract forms hover across the surface, creating silhouetted shapes and geometries… he folded the newspapers into thin slivers in order to stencil horizontal, diagonal and vertical bands toward an overall symphonic field of quiet, abstracted geometry. These paintings have a gravity-defying weightlessness and yet there is a real sense of physicality and presence to them.” (Poddar, p. 30)

The monochromatic canvas is punctuated by calligraphic and hieroglyphic forms, which became a central feature of Gaitonde’s work after first appearing in his paintings in the 1960s and were likely inspired by his exposure to the art and philosophy of the Far East and the teachings of Indian sage Sri Ramana Maharshi. These forms “also perform a stylistic function by organising the formal tensions in the available space and by quietly dramatising the interplay of light, texture and space.” (Nadkarni, 1983)

Referring to the influence of Zen on his work in a letter to Krishen Khanna dated 20 December 1962, Gaitonde writes, “...since I started taking interest in Zen my painting has changed. My painting will always fluctuate between being and non-being, because whole activity emerges from the tonality.” (The artist quoted in Menezes, p. 112)

In a 1991 interview with journalist Pritish Nandy, the artist equated the circle, which appears in several canvases including the present lot, with silence. He went on to allude to the philosophy that sums up his creative process, saying, “Everything starts from silence. The silence of the brush. The silence of the canvas. The silence of the painting knife. The painter starts by absorbing all these silences. You are not partial in the sense that no one part of you is working there. Your entire being is. Your entire being is working together with the brush, the painting knife, the canvas to absorb that silence and create.” (The artist quoted in Poddar, p. 39)

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