Important Notice

According to Jogen Chowdhury, "figuration is extremely important... I want to portray our human environment, the people of our country, their nature, their way of sitting because they are diff erent from others. You'll notice that there's a peculiar Indianness in their gestures and that attracts me. And it is this-the particular characteristics we see-that I wish to distil in my art. I develop these portrayals through distortion... I try to... According to Jogen Chowdhury, "figuration is extremely important... I want to portray our human environment, the people of our country, their nature, their way of sitting because they are diff erent from others. You'll notice that there's a peculiar Indianness in their gestures and that attracts me. And it is this-the particular characteristics we see-that I wish to distil in my art. I develop these portrayals through distortion... I try to import in my figures an extra quality that's beyond academic naturalism, a certain abstract quality that makes them supra-real." (The artist quoted in Rakhi Sarkar, Jogen Chowdhury and Rita Dutta, Jogen Chowdhury: His Life and Times, Kolkata: Cima Gallery Pvt. Ltd., 10 February - 11 March 2006, p. 37) His drawings of women are not studies in portraiture, they are the artist's very particular interpretation of his subjects, with a focus on the human body depicted with the aloof curiosity of scientific observation. In the present lot, the woman, with her raised arms and averted eyes, suggests a pose sometimes seen in Indian miniature painting. She is oblivious to the viewer, absorbed in her own thoughts. The painting assumes a dramatic quality, akin to a theatrical performance, with the subject illuminated in an otherwise darkened room.

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