Important Notice

"My paintings are nothing else but the reflection of nature. I want to say things in a few words. I aim at directness and simplicity" - V S GAITONDE

V S Gaitonde dedicated his life and art to discovering new ways of painting through constant experimentation. He sought solitude and stillness all his life, the essence of which is reflected palpably in his meditative paintings. Although he disliked categorising his work as... "My paintings are nothing else but the reflection of nature. I want to say things in a few words. I aim at directness and simplicity" - V S GAITONDE

V S Gaitonde dedicated his life and art to discovering new ways of painting through constant experimentation. He sought solitude and stillness all his life, the essence of which is reflected palpably in his meditative paintings. Although he disliked categorising his work as abstract art-preferring the term "non-objective" instead-he is considered one of the foremost Abstract Expressionist painters in the canon of modern Indian art.
Born to Goan parents, Gaitonde grew up in a modest chawl in Mumbai and went on study at the Sir J J School of Arts. After he graduated in 1948, he was invited to join the Progressive Artists' Group in the early 1950s. In the decade that followed, Gaitonde experimented with various forms of figuration, space and abstraction-his influences as diverse as traditional Indian painting to the lyrical and expressive compositions of Western Abstractionist Paul Klee.

By 1957, Gaitonde broke away from all forms of figuration and turned toward a nonrepresentational form of painting, with heavy emphasis on discovering the complexities of colour and space. According to art historian Meera Menezes, he embarked on a lifelong journey "that would take him from form to formlessness, from essaying an outward reality to conducting a deep search within." (Meera Menezes, Vasudeo Santu Gaitonde: Sonata of Solitude, Mumbai: Bodhana Arts and Research Foundation, 2016, p. 98) During this period, he worked out of a studio at the Bhulabhai Desai Memorial Institute, a multidisciplinary cultural centre in then Bombay which remained the nexus for many luminaries in the field of art, theatre and music until its closing in 1967.

As Gaitonde's mode of expression evolved, so did his medium. In 1959, he stopped working with watercolours and brushes altogether, choosing instead to use rollers and palette knives to create layers of translucency on his canvas punctuated by areas of thick impasto. This was accompanied by a deep abiding interest in Zen Buddhism and the principles of calligraphy, manifesting in a series of ink and wash works on paper and canvasses in the 1960s. He revisited these forms in later years, after having completely shifted to monochromatic works in vertical formats, and successfully merged the two, as seen in the present lot.

In this 1975 painting, Gaitonde creates a deep, almost smouldering crimson surface, traversed by several darker horizontals through which his enigmatic, hieroglyph-like forms seem to emerge and recede. "It is worth speculating that the calligraphic drawings and the preoccupation with hieroglyphs which one places among his early work served as a sort of initial bridge for Gaitonde's stepping into the world of abstraction... there are very bold triangular and parabolic constructions whose differing sizes maintain an exciting interplay. These forms appear to float and seek anchor and they are no doubt members of the same family of hieroglyphs which interested Gaitonde in the late fifties." (Dnyaneshwar Nadkarni, Gaitonde, New Delhi: Lalit Kala Akademi, 1983)

During this period, Gaitonde had also begun experimenting with newspaper and magazine cut-outs, by applying colour to the back of the scraps of paper, transferring it onto the canvas using rollers and subsequently erasing those parts with palette knives. The resulting effect created abstract shapes that appear to linger on the surface, much like the geometric forms seen in the present lot. In these canvasses from the 1970s and 1980s, the artist intuitively achieves a delicate balance between form, colour and texture.

Gaitonde's process of perfecting such works was a lengthy one. Throughout the year, he only made a handful of paintings, spending months working on a single canvas. "This emphasis on the creative process, the artist's masterful handling of color, structure, texture, and light, and his intuitive understanding of how these forces come together to alter one's perception are testament to his unwavering commitment to his craft. Gaitonde's profound understanding of the properties and capacities of his chosen medium-painting-which constituted the sole vehicle of experience for the artist and the viewer, sets his works apart not only as deeply contemplative and refined objects, but as containers of an avid, voracious worldview..." (Sandhini Poddar, "Polyphonic Modernisms and Gaitonde's Interiorized Worldview," V S Gaitonde: Painting as Process, Painting as Life, New York: The Solomon R Guggenheim Museum, 2014, p. 30)

The New York Times art critic Holland Cotter has referred to Gaitonde as "a 20th century Indian modernist who looked westward, eastward, homeward and inward to create an intensely personalized version of transculturalism, one that has given him mythic stature in his own country and pushed him to the top of the auction charts." (Holland Cotter, "An Indian Modernist With a Global Gaze," The New York Times, 1 January 2015, online) His uniquely personal vision transcends cultural boundaries and has contributed to his universal appeal among art connoisseurs across the world.

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