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Anjolie Menon
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Throughout her career as a painter, Anjolie Ela Menon has regularly re-envisioned her role as an artist. Menon's early canvases exhibited the varied influences of van Gogh, the Expressionists, Modigliani, Amrita Sher-Gil, and M. F. Husain. Mainly portraits, these paintings, according to the artist, “were dominated by flat areas of thick bright colour, with sharp outlines that were painted 'with the vigour and brashness of extreme...
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Throughout her career as a painter, Anjolie Ela Menon has regularly re-envisioned her role as an artist. Menon's early canvases exhibited the varied influences of van Gogh, the Expressionists, Modigliani, Amrita Sher-Gil, and M. F. Husain. Mainly portraits, these paintings, according to the artist, “were dominated by flat areas of thick bright colour, with sharp outlines that were painted 'with the vigour and brashness of extreme youth'.” Menon admits that her work has undergone tremendous changes with every phase of her life and that as she has grown older, the narcissism of the early years has been transformed into nostalgia for the past.
Menon took up art while still in school, and, by the time she was fifteen, had already sold a couple of paintings. Finding the J.J. School of Art academically stifling, in 1959, at the age of twenty, Menon departed India to study art in Europe on a scholarship from the French Government. There, she was influenced by her exposure to the techniques of medieval Christian artists. While at the Ecole Nationale des Beaux Art in Paris, she began to experiment with a muted palette of translucent colours, which she created by the repeated application of oil paint in thin glazes. Painting on hardboard, Menon enhanced the finely textured surface of her paintings by burnishing the finished work with a soft dry brush, creating a glow reminiscent of medieval icons. Menon utilized the characteristics of early Christian art – including the frontal perspective, the averted head, and the slight body elongation – but took the female nude as a frequent subject. The result is a dynamic relationship of the erotic and the melancholy. Menon has developed this iconography of distance and loss in her later works through her thematic depiction of black crows, empty chairs, windows, and hidden figures.
It is extremely difficult to compartmentalize Menon’s work, not only because she has been painting for so long, but because of the extreme changes that her oeuvre has constantly undergone. She notes that “dissatisfaction is the source of growth,” and encourages artists to “abandon known (and often acclaimed) ground for new territory”. The body of work she has produced bears testament to her disdain for categorization. Menon is more than happy to not fit into a single category and be termed a maverick who finds self-expression in an idiom out of context with the time and place in which she lives. She says “I am neither a didactic nor narrative painter. I am hardly concerned with events, though I like to lay my people bare – I like to bare them a bit beyond what is decent, sometimes ripping open a chest to reveal the heart beating within. Of course, there are many who have identified with the women I paint, especially those who are trapped or sitting alone on a chair, or those innocent ones with a newly-awakened sensuality, and those who are waiting.”
Menon also disapproves of reading only symbolism in her art. Threads, necklaces, kites, the little animals or draped cloth, transparent or opaque, are the accoutrements and trappings that accompany the figure in her work. These are no conscious attempts at symbolism, sometimes it is mere ornamentation, the essentially feminine need to embellish or embroider, at other times it is the need to accent or to focus on the colour for purely painterly reasons such as perspective or tension.
Menon notes, “when repeated often enough, a motif becomes a symbol which in turn becomes a cliché; a cliché becomes an absurdity, a cartoon”. Therefore in 1992, she staged an exhibit of household chairs, trunks and cupboards, all painted with images appropriated from her own paintings. This radical recontextualization of her work constituted a pre-emptive strike by Menon to “remove art from its pedestal”. She continued the re-imagination of her corpus in her “Mutations” series of pentimenti works form 1996, in which Menon manipulated images from her best-known paintings on a computer, and overpainted the print-outs with acrylics and oils.
Anjolie Ela Menon was awarded the Padma Shri, one of India’s highest civilian honours, by the Government of India in 2000. Her most recent shows include ‘Menongitis-Three Generations of Art’ at Dhoomimal Gallery, New Delhi, in 2008; and ‘Gods and Others’ presented by Apparao Galleries at Admit One Gallery, New York, in 2000. In 1998, the Times of India organized a retrospective of her work at the Jehangir Art Gallery, and in 2002, another retrospective exhibition titled ‘Four Decades’ was held in Mumbai and in Bangalore. Anjolie Ela Menon has also been honoured with a six month solo show at the Asian Art Museum, San Francisco, featuring her large triptych entitled ‘Yatra’ in 2006.
Menon’s works have been featured in several group exhibitions, including 'Kalpana: Figurative Art in India', presented by the Indian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR) at Aicon Gallery, London, in 2009; 'Mapping Memories – 2, Painted Travelogues of Bali and Burma’ at Gallery Threshold, New Delhi, in 2008; and ‘Kitsch Kitsch Hota Hai’ at India Habitat Centre, New Delhi, in 2001.
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Born
1940
Burnpur, West Bengal, India
Education
Bachelors in Literature, Delhi University, Delhi1959-61 Atelier Fresque, Ecole Nationale des Beaux Art, Paris
Exhibitions
Selected Solo Exhibitions
2017 'Anjolie Ela Menon: A...
Selected Solo Exhibitions
2017 'Anjolie Ela Menon: A Retrospective', New York: Aicon Gallery
2013 'Recent Paintings', Grosvenor Vadehra, London 2013 Institute of Contemporary Indian Art (ICIA), Mumbai2010 'Through the Patina', organized by Vadhera Art Gallery at Visual Arts Gallery, India Habitat Centre, New Delhi2007 ‘Menongitis-Three Generations Of Art’, Dhoomimal Gallery, New Delhi2006 ‘Celebration’, Gallery ArtsIndia West, Palo Alto2005 ArtsIndia West, Palo Alto2004 Gallery ArtsIndia, New York 2003 Vadehra Art Gallery at Shridharani Gallery, Delhi2002 ‘Four Decades’, Vadehra Art Gallery at National Art of Modern Art(NGMA), Mumbai, Karnataka Chitrakala Parishad, Bangalore2000 ‘Gods and others’, Apparao Galleries at Admit One Gallery, New York1996 Vadhera Art Gallery, Hong Kong1996 Mutations, organized by The Gallery, Madras, at Wallace Galleries, New York1988 ‘Retrospective 1958-88’, organized by The Times of India, Jehangir Art Gallery, Mumbai1976 Gallery Chemould, Mumbai1963 Alliance Francaise, Mumbai1959 Gallery 59, Mumbai
Selected Group Exhibitions
2014 'Immutable Gaze Part I: Masterpieces of Modern and Pre-Modern Indian Art', Aicon Gallery, New York
2013 'Remaking the Modern: An Indian Modern & Contemporary Art Exhibition', Alon Zakaim Fine Art, Dover Street 2013 'Glimpses of I am the Tiger', Indian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR), New Delhi 2013 'Ideas of the Sublime', presented by Vadehra Art Gallery at Lalit Kala Akademi, New Delhi2013 'QUARTO '13', Art Musings, Mumbai2013 'The Drawing Wall', Vadehra Art Gallery, New Delhi2013 'Color My World', presented by Mahua Art Gallery at Leela Galleria and Windsor Manor, Bangalore 2013 'Edge of Reason- and beyond, into pure creativity', presented by Indian Art Circle at Lalit Kala Akademi, New Delhi 2012 'Talking Heads', Art Alive Gallery, New Delhi2012 'Iconic Processions', Aicon Gallery, New York 2012 'Gallery Collection', Vadehra Art Gallery, New Delhi 2012 'Women: Sacred and the Temporal', Shrishti Art Gallery, Hyderabad 2012 'Contemporary: A Selection of Modern and Contemporary Art', prsented by Sakshi Gallery at The Park, Chennai
2011 'The Lost Sparrow', presented by Gallery Threshold at Visual Art Gallery, India Habitat Centre, New Delhi 2011 'Masterclass', Dhoomimal Art Gallery, New Delhi2010 'Figure/Landscape - Part One', Aicon Gallery, New York2009-10 'Unclaimed Spaces', Gallery Threshold, New Delhi2009,10 'Master Class', The Arts Trust, Mumbai2009 'Indian Art After Independence: Selected Works from the Collections of Virginia & Ravi Akhoury and Shelley & Donald Rubin', Emile Lowe Gallery, Hempstead2009 'In Search of the Vernacular', Aicon Gallery, New York2009 'Kalpana: Figurative Art in India', presented by The Indian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR) at Aicon Gallery, London; The Indian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR)2008 'X at the rate of Jehangir', presented by Art Musings at Jehangir Art Gallery, Mumbai2008 'Mapping Memories – 2, Painted Travelogues of Bali and Burma, Gallery Threshold, New Delhi2007 ‘Sitaaray - A Galaxy of Artists’, Indian Habitat Centre, Delhi2005 ‘Drishti’, Bodhi Art Gallery, New York2004 ‘Confluence 2004’, Gallery ArtsIndia, New York2004 ‘Jiva- Life, Contemporary Indian Painting’, Bodhi Art Gallery, New York 2001 Saffronart and Apparao Galleries, Los Angeles 2001 Saffronart, Hong Kong2001 ‘Kitsch Kitsch Hota Hai’, organized by Gallery Espace, India Habitat Centre, New Delhi2001 ‘The Sacred Prism III’, organized by Apparao Gallery, London, New York, San Francisco1993 ‘Reflections and Images’, Vadehra Art gallery at Jehangir Art gallery, Mumbai1986 ‘Indian Women Artists’, National Gallery of Modern Art, Mumbai1980 Exhibition at Washington D.C and New York
Participations
2015 'Abby Grey and Indian Modernism: Selections from the NYU Art Collection', Grey Art Gallery, New York University, New York2013 'Palette Summer 2013', Palette Art Gallery, New Delhi2012 'Art for Humanity', Coomaraswamy Hall, Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya, Mumbai2011 'Of Gods and Goddesses, Cinema, Cricket: The New Cultural Icons of India', Jehangir Art Gallery, Mumbai2011 'Resonance', Art Musings, Mumbai2010 'Art Celebrates 2010: Sports and the City', represented by Art Alive Gallery at Lalit Kala Akademi, New Delhi to coincide with the hosting of the Commonwealth Games2010 'Art Dubai 2010', presented by Aicon Gallery, New York2010 'Manifestations IV', Delhi Art Gallery, New Delhi2010 'ARCO 2010 Madrid', presented by Aicon Gallery, London1980 Paris Biennale, Paris, France1968,71,75 1st,2nd,3rd International Triennale, Lalit Kala Akademi, Delhi
Honours and Awards
2000 Awarded the Padma Shri by the Government of India 1959-61 Received French Government Scholarship for Higher Studies in Paris 1980-81 Invited to study by The Government of France, UK and USA
2000 Awarded the Padma Shri by the Government of India 1959-61 Received French Government Scholarship for Higher Studies in Paris 1980-81 Invited to study by The Government of France, UK and USA
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PAST AUCTIONS
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Lot 70
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Evening Sale
14 September 2024
Untitled
Mixed media on board
29 x 19 in
Winning bid
$37,590
Rs 31,20,000
(Inclusive of buyer's premium)
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Lot 106
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Summer Online Auction
26-27 June 2024
Untitled
Oil and collage on Masonite
11 x 8 in
Winning bid
$10,843
Rs 9,00,000
(Inclusive of buyer's premium)
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Lot 107
Details
Summer Online Auction
26-27 June 2024
Untitled
Oil on Masonite
13.5 x 11.75 in
Winning bid
$15,904
Rs 13,20,000
(Inclusive of buyer's premium)
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Lot 117
Details
Spring Online Auction
13-14 March 2024
Untitled
Oil on Masonite
23.5 x 18 in
Winning bid
$20,488
Rs 16,80,000
(Inclusive of buyer's premium)
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