Important Notice

The present lot, which was painted in 2001, exemplifies Gulam Mohammed Sheikh’s lifelong commitment to the exploration of syncretism and cultural multiplicity in his work, examined through the lens of art history, religious iconography, and his own lived experience. Titled Talisman: Taveez, the work references diverse artistic traditions spanning the 5th century BC to the present day.

This canvas is likely one of the last that... The present lot, which was painted in 2001, exemplifies Gulam Mohammed Sheikh’s lifelong commitment to the exploration of syncretism and cultural multiplicity in his work, examined through the lens of art history, religious iconography, and his own lived experience. Titled Talisman: Taveez, the work references diverse artistic traditions spanning the 5th century BC to the present day.

This canvas is likely one of the last that Sheikh painted in oil-by the early 2000s, he began to experiment with different media, most notably the possibilities of digital technology. Remarking on the significance of the present lot, art historian Chaitanya Sambrani writes, “Some of his earliest experiments with digital media have direct analogues in oil paintings such as Talisman: Taveez (2001). This painting and its digital counterparts are based on the form of the alphabet chart that Sheikh used in Alphabet Stories (2000). Here, only the first and last compartments of the chart were occupied by letters (in Devanagari...) The first compartment was given to ‘a’, the first of the twelve vowels, and the last compartment held ‘gya’, the last of the thirty-three (or thirty-five) consonants. This is akin to the Alpha and the Omega together: ‘agya’ gestures towards unknowing or ignorance; ‘agyat’ means the unknown, while ‘agyani’ is the adjective for an ignorant person. Stretched across the remaining forty-eight squares were images signifying the divine or exalted status from sources ranging across India, Turkey, Persia, Mexico, Ireland, Italy, France, China and Egypt.” (Chaitanya Sambrani, “At Home in the World,” Chaitanya Sambrani ed., At Home in the World: The Art and Life of Gulammohamed Sheikh, New Delhi: Tulika Books in association with Vadehra Art Gallery, 2019, p. 144)

Among the icons and paintings Sheikh has recreated in oil in the present lot are an 18th-century Pahari rendition of Radha from the Geeta Govinda; a 16th-century work from Iran depicting angels observing the ascension of Prophet Muhammad to heaven; Head of a Courtesan with a Rose, a 19th-century Kalighat painting; an auspicious jade symbol from China, circa 5th - 3rd century BC; St Dominique from The Mocking of Christ, a 15th century painting by early Renaissance artist Fra Angelico; a 1200 AD Chola sculpture of Ganesha; an illustration of St Luke from the illuminated manuscript The Book of Kells, likely dating to the 7th century; and the Egyptian goddess Isis from the 12th century BC. Similar trans-historical figures also make appearances in subsequent works such as his Mappamundi, Kaavad, and Ark series of the 2000s onwards.

Sheikh once remarked in a speech at Georgetown University, “Living in India means living simultaneously in several cultures and times...The past exists as a living entity alongside the present, each illuminating and sustaining the other.” (Gulam Mohammed Sheikh, “Among Several Cultures and Times,” 2013, Accessed online via Asia Art Archive) This sense of multiplicity, simultaneity, and pluralism that the artist has continuously engaged with through his work has its roots in his childhood and early professional career. He grew up in a middle-class Muslim family in the small town of Surendranagar, Gujarat, where different faiths and cultural practices commingled. While at school he studied Hindu and Jain religious texts, Vedic and Upanishadic literature, and the poetry of Kalidasa, and first became acquainted with Sufism through a magazine his father subscribed to. “In a way, I learnt more about belief systems other than the one in which I was born,” he declared. (Sambrani, p. 98)

Sheikh enrolled at the Faculty of Fine Arts at the Maharaja Sayajirao University, Baroda, in 1955 under the tutelage of N S Bendre, Sankho Chaudhri, and K G Subramanyan, and later joined the institution as a professor of art history in 1960. Here he was exposed to a wide range of pedagogic and artistic practices from across India, Europe, and America, which prompted a search for his own visual identity. This study only deepened during his time in London where he joined the Royal College of Art (RCA) on a Commonwealth Scholarship from 1963 to 1966. He spent hours observing Rajasthani and Mughal miniature paintings and other eminent works of Indian art at the Victoria and Albert Museum, and closely engaged with works by early Renaissance artists such as Duccio, Giotto, Masaccio, Piero della Francesca, Bosh, and Van Eyck. He travelled widely across France, Italy, Germany, and Spain, observing many art historical works in person at churches, public buildings, and museums.

Inspired by these experiences, Sheikh began a dialogue with different cultures and traditions through his work. He says, “The seeds of combining ideas and images of diverse origins came to me from my deeper engagement with pre-modern Indian painting during my stay in England and the abiding lure of pre-Renaissance painting, particularly the Sienese, tracked during my wanderings in Europe, especially Italy... What appeared to be hybrid and eclectic in fact opened up immense possibilities of exploration. So, I made a conscious choice to favour hybridity against notions of “purity”; and the multiple against preoccupations with a singular image... Besides re- looking at tradition, what was most inspiring was re- imagining and even creating memory. Most of all, it grounded the imagery in specific yet numerous times and places.” (The artist quoted in E V Ramakrishnan, “Interview with Professor Gulammohammed Sheikh: Towards an Alternative Visual Language,” The Hindu, 25 June 2021, online)

On returning to his hometown in 1966 after having spent three years in England, Sheikh found himself questioning the idea of home and “belonging and un-belonging”. He explains, “The long struggle led me to accept both situations, as I did in life, which also led me to develop an equally plural idiom in my art practice. I realised there was no reason to consider images of disparate origins as antagonistic, especially if a sustaining connectivity could be found to make them coexist in a dynamic diversity. The idea of looking for the objective of unity that we were taught in art schools seemed a spent-up delusive ideal. Multiplicity and diversity could also be equally desired goals to pursue.” (Ramakrishnan, online)

While many of his canvases, such as City for Sale (1981-84) and Sursagar (1987), seamlessly blend often disparate imagery to draw you into an almost dream-like world, in the present lot Sheikh uses a flat perspective, arranging icons in individual boxes in a collage-like manner. Both instances allow a viewer’s eye to travel across the pictorial space, a concept he terms ‘mobile vision’ and which he borrowed from pre-Renaissance European paintings and Persian and Mughal artworks.

As the many Indian art forms and iconography detailed in the present lot indicate, Sheikh’s idea of cosmopolitanism was “deeply rooted in Indian tradition.” (Sambrani, p. 146) Sambrani goes on to liken the artist’s quest to form a “world-picture” to Sufi saint Kabir’s advaita (non-dualist) philosophy, explaining that it is not merely his art historical knowledge but a keenness to accept and imbibe this cross-civilizational inheritance that allows for him to effectively espouse the acceptance of plurality through his art. In an increasingly polarised world, Sheikh assembles imagery from across eras and cultures and “imagines an era when ‘there was no one religion, or one system or one belief or one idea, but multiple systems, multiple beliefs, multiple religions, and multiple ideas.’... [He] imagines a past in which such processes have not yet begun, and recasts that past as a resource for thinking through a future in which the fluidity of identity and practice can be acknowledged and championed.” (Karin Zitzewitz, “Different Modes of Telling Our Tales,” Chaitanya Sambrani ed., At Home in the World: The Art and Life of Gulammohamed Sheikh, New Delhi: Tulika Books in association with Vadehra Art Gallery, 2019, p. 304)

PROPERTY FROM THE KAVAS BHARUCHA FAMILY COLLECTION
(Lots 64 - 65)

Kavas Bharucha (1947 - 2007), more popularly known as Binzi, bought his first two works of art in the early 1970s. They were still lifes by K H Ara and cost a couple of hundred rupees each. These hung in his bachelor apartment. Then in I978, soon after he had got married, his eye fell upon an article on M F Husain while leafing through a magazine at a newsstand at Flora Fountain in South Bombay. He turned around and saw the Husain mural on the front of Pundole Art Gallery. He went in and met the owner, Kali Pundole. He showed Kali the magazine article and asked if he had any works by Husain. “How much time do you have?” Kali enquired. “About fifteen minutes,” was Binzi’s reply. “Well,” said Kali, “Why don’t you come back another time, when you can spare a couple of hours?” That was the genesis of Binzi’s abiding passion for art.

Binzi was single-minded in his zeal to acquire every work he could and could not afford. No one could deter him from his obsession. Art became the sustenance for his soul and its possession was an uncontrollable need. There was a lightness in his being when he bought a work that had caught his fancy. Soon, his wife Khorshed succumbed to his persuasion.

Binzi started his career with Colour Chem Ltd. at their factory in Thane. He rose to the position of MD. He travelled across India and spent his spare time discovering galleries in Calcutta, Madras, and Delhi. Every gallerist became a friend, as did all the artists he met through them. As he collected, he and Khorshed fine–tuned their sensibilities and theirs became a very distilled collection. Paperworks took prominence because they were easier to afford. As their finances grew, their collecting became even more compulsive. At times, almost one new work per week. Sometimes, even the gallerists advised Binzi that a certain work was overpriced. It fell on deaf ears. If it appealed to him, he just had to own it. Although the moderns and contemporaries enjoyed equal favour, there were some “first among equals”. The collection includes works by M F Husain, Ram Kumar, F N Souza, Jogen Chowdhury, Arpita Singh, Nilima Sheikh, Gulam Mohammed Sheikh, and Nalini Malani amongst many others.

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