Important Notice

From the akasa (sky) in flat monochromatic planes, to the ananda (joy) he absorbs from his surroundings and infuses into his paintings as an act of celebration, Manjit Bawa's art is forged from influences that are vast and eclectic. For technique, he draws upon Mughal, Rajput and Pahari miniatures as well as silk-screen printing, which he studied in Britain. For narrative, he dives into stories from Indian mythology. The serenity of... From the akasa (sky) in flat monochromatic planes, to the ananda (joy) he absorbs from his surroundings and infuses into his paintings as an act of celebration, Manjit Bawa's art is forged from influences that are vast and eclectic. For technique, he draws upon Mughal, Rajput and Pahari miniatures as well as silk-screen printing, which he studied in Britain. For narrative, he dives into stories from Indian mythology. The serenity of Bawa's flat paint surfaces, is perhaps informed by Sufism, a philosophy he believed in deeply.

By subverting each of these elements in small but significant ways, Bawa arrives upon a unique aesthetic vocabulary, that is singularly his own. "Manjit's art was not so much narrative as it was tersely idiomatic. Short staccato phrases pregnant with as many possibilities as the reader could read into them. ...Yet, with just the right gesture or a twist of the rubbery body his magical paintings could encapsulate whole Puranic legends and folk tales with a subversive sense of humour." (S. Kalidas, Let's Paint the Sky Red-Manjit Bawa, Vadehra Art Gallery, New Delhi, 2011, p.19)

Bawa began painting circus figures extensively in the '90s. The "Acrobat," as seen in the present lot, is a figure that Bawa often revisited in his works. This painting is unusual because unlike Bawa's usually luminous, bold backgrounds, the palette here is muted. "The drama is in the image." (online, Sunil Mehra, "When Lyric becomes Line", Outlook India digital archives, April 10, 1996)

Manjit Bawa's interest in acrobats and the circus began in 1988, when he was invited to participate in the Times of India's sesquicentennial exhibition held at the Victoria Terminus railway station in Mumbai. Esteemed art curator Rajeev Sethi, who was the scenographer for the project at that time, had envisioned Bawa's figurations over a bus stop outside the building. At the time, the artist accompanied Sethi to Shahidpur Depot village in Delhi, particularly the Kathputli Colony, a known settlement of acrobats, puppeteers, magicians, and several other performance groups. In an interview with Saffronart, Sethi reflected on how Bawa made several sketches of these contortionists, which were to play a huge role in his "circus of life" installation. Sethi said, "In a way, he saw himself as the eternal acrobat."

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