Important Notice

"In the early work, expression was all-important... I was painting from the gut." - TYEB MEHTA

A testament to Mehta's lifelong engagement with the figure-which resulted in some of his seminal paintings in later years, including the record-breaking Kali- the present lot lies at the very beginning of the artist's poignant and incisive journey in exploring the human spirit, and is a significant precursor to his later works.... "In the early work, expression was all-important... I was painting from the gut." - TYEB MEHTA

A testament to Mehta's lifelong engagement with the figure-which resulted in some of his seminal paintings in later years, including the record-breaking Kali- the present lot lies at the very beginning of the artist's poignant and incisive journey in exploring the human spirit, and is a significant precursor to his later works. Painted in 1963 when Mehta was based in London, it is a monumental work representing the artist's early exploration with form, colour and texture. Its significance is underscored by its scale, which was unusual for his works of this period.

After a brief stay in England in 1954, Mehta returned to the country in 1959 and his five years there reflected the "harsh, brushy-textured, impasto-laden expressionism aligned with the School of Paris models," a practice that was favoured by many of his contemporaries, and their Western counterparts, in the aftermath of World War II. (Ranjit Hoskote, Ramachandra Gandhi et al., Tyeb Mehta: Ideas Images Exchanges, New Delhi: Vadehra Art Gallery, 2005, p. 5)

During this period, Mehta was exposed to the museums, galleries and artistic discourse of that time, and it proved to be a phase of "considerable rejuvenation. Among the works of major artists, Tyeb was influenced by Francis Bacon whose consciousness of anguished humanity expressed in grotesque imagery made an impact on him." (Yashodhara Dalmia, Tyeb Mehta: A Triumph of Vision, New Delhi: Vadehra Art Gallery, 2011, p. 7)

The element of human suffering that was the defining essence of many of Mehta's images, including the rickshaw pullers and falling figures-which he would begin painting in 1965-is palpable in this work. "In the earliest years of this first phase of his art, Tyeb's protagonists communicated the seismic unease of fugitives, refugees, survivors, individuals ill at ease in their ethos, their bodies like squared-up masses held firm by rope-thick outlines." (Hoskote, p. 5)

Titled Reclining Figure with Bull's Head, the present lot depicts a recumbent image of a human figure with the head of a bull, the latter being a significant motif in Mehta's oeuvre. He first painted the trussed bull in 1956, depicting the powerful animal "wounded, flayed and held in depraved captivity. Perhaps the idea germinated while looking at a bas relief of an ancient Egyptian bull at the British Museum and garnered force because of his own gut level experience of reality." (Dalmia, p. 7)

During this time, Mehta was also drawn to the writings of Albert Camus and Jean-Paul Sartre, and the notion of the Absurd, which were so urgently explored by artists and writers in the post-war climate of Europe. Mehta, whose life was indelibly marked by the Partition of 1947, perhaps found a co-relation in India's own struggle for Independence. The sectarian violence that he witnessed and experienced would forever impact him and became the underlying element in his art. "The bull and the fractured figure were part of the same emotional source and conveyed a strong sense of life nipped in the bud." (Dalmia, p. 9)

Here, the figure in space and the bull's head are painted with thick, flesh tones that were "typified by a direct rendering of experience on the surface. His paintings in sombre tones could loosely be termed expressionistic and articulated the fate of individuals who were in some way cornered by fate. The thickly stroked paint would layer the surface with a heavy patina of disquiet. The rendering of colours, of equal tonality and applied in verisimilitude, provided a cohesion, which would yet seem like a fierce interlocking. A compressed battle would ensue also between figure and the space surrounding it." (Dalmia, p. 5) The present lot pre-empts the Falling Figure series of the mid-1960s-where the artist would use the same heavy brushwork that he practised during this time- and provides an important glimpse into the evolution of Mehta's engagement with the human form.

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