Important Notice

In 1948, Husain and a co-founder of the Progressive Artists’ Group, F.N. Souza, paid a visit to the India Independence Exhibition at Rashtrapati Bhavan in New Delhi. At this show, a celebration of India’s classical and folk artistic heritage, these modern artists came across traditional and historically significant art from all over the country. The exhibition, and particularly the Chola and Gupta bronzes from South India, left a deep impression... In 1948, Husain and a co-founder of the Progressive Artists’ Group, F.N. Souza, paid a visit to the India Independence Exhibition at Rashtrapati Bhavan in New Delhi. At this show, a celebration of India’s classical and folk artistic heritage, these modern artists came across traditional and historically significant art from all over the country. The exhibition, and particularly the Chola and Gupta bronzes from South India, left a deep impression on Husain, redefining the way in which the artist presented the human form and movement within the confines of a two-dimensional surface.

“For Husain, it was in many ways a turning point in his career. It was at this juncture that he conceived the essential form that is pivotal to his work” The artist explains, “One reason why I went back to the Gupta period of sculpture was to study the human form – when the British ruled we were taught to draw a figure with the proportions from Greek and Roman sculpture…That was what I thought was wrong…In the east the human form is an entirely different structure…the way a woman walks in the village there are three breaks…from the feet, the hips, the shoulder…they move in rhythm…the walk of a European is erect and archaic” (rpt. in Yashodhara Dalmia, The Making of Modern Indian Art: The Progressives, Oxford University Press, New Delhi, 2001, p. 102). In the present lot, Husain illustrates these ‘three breaks’ of Indian form and posture, or his interpretation of the classic tribhanga position that was commonly used in traditional Indian sculpture to reflect grace and movement.

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