Important Notice

“I feel much lighter now. My personal tensions have been resolved. At 64, you no longer have the feeling that you will never die. One leaves the ambition to become a great painter and accepts whatever one is. Earlier, I worried all the time about my position as an artist.” - BHUPEN KHAKHAR

Bhupen Khakhar’s practice has witnessed uncountable developments in the areas of style, technique, influences and themes since the beginning of... “I feel much lighter now. My personal tensions have been resolved. At 64, you no longer have the feeling that you will never die. One leaves the ambition to become a great painter and accepts whatever one is. Earlier, I worried all the time about my position as an artist.” - BHUPEN KHAKHAR

Bhupen Khakhar’s practice has witnessed uncountable developments in the areas of style, technique, influences and themes since the beginning of his career in the 1960s. Yet, his diverse and far-reaching oeuvre is tied together by its shared characteristic irreverence and clever disregard for artistic and societal norms - qualities that branded him as an ‘iconoclast’ or ‘maverick’ in the art world.

While Khakhar is celebrated and widely known for his neo-miniaturist depictions of gay life and homoeroticism, one of the most frequented subjects and themes in his art is the life of the ordinary man. Some of his earliest paintings, labelled by the artist as ‘trade paintings’, included portraits of barbers, tailors, watchmakers and other ‘insignificant men’ engaging in their unremarkable professions. Although this was a theme that he briefly abandoned in the mid-1970s to ‘80s, Khakhar’s work from the ‘90s through his final years (2003) demonstrates his renewed love for observing the simple, ordinary life.

Painted in 1995, the present lot depicts such a traditional, everyday scene in watercolour - a medium that Khakhar increasingly adopted in the latter part of his career. “In the 90s, Khakhar began experimenting with watercolour and ceramics. Works of this period display great joy and freedom at the discovery of new materials. As the artist became more confident of his style and subject matter, he reverted to depicting everyday life - for instance, a charming landscape of Kerala with Elephants Sporting in a River (1995), or a group of Muslims around a mosque.” (Amrita Jhaveri, A Guide to 101 Modern and Contemporary Indian Artists, Mumbai: India Book House, 2005, p. 45)

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