Important Notice

During the 1950s and 1960s Ganesh Pyne worked primarily with watercolour, ink and wash, and gouache before developing his own tempera technique that would dominate his later works. Following his graduation from Calcutta’s Government College of Art in 1959, he immersed himself in the arts-he read widely, attended poetry sessions, watched experimental plays and the films of Fellini, Bergman, and Kurosawa, and interacted with fellow artists. Though... During the 1950s and 1960s Ganesh Pyne worked primarily with watercolour, ink and wash, and gouache before developing his own tempera technique that would dominate his later works. Following his graduation from Calcutta’s Government College of Art in 1959, he immersed himself in the arts-he read widely, attended poetry sessions, watched experimental plays and the films of Fellini, Bergman, and Kurosawa, and interacted with fellow artists. Though he had decided to devote himself to his art, he took up a part-time job as an illustrator at Mandar Mallick’s animation film studio for a steady income. “Mullick…taught him to observe and appreciate what, at first glance, seemed trivial…The possibility of discovering an entirely new world within the familiar parameters of the old one was suddenly quite fascinating…In fact, the paintings from this period display the dexterity of Pyne’s drawing and his sense of rhythm.” (Shiladitya Sarkar, “The House on Kaviraj Row”, Thirst of a Minstrel: The Life and Times of Ganesh Pyne, New Delhi: Rupa & Co., p. 27)

While sketching characters and storyboards based on Mallick’s ideas, Pyne developed his own artistic style that would go on to characterise his mature works. The present lot is a beautiful example of the melancholic paintings laden with symbolism that he created in his prime years. The figure in the work contains many features that would become emblematic of those of his widely regarded temperas-its limbs appear wooden and immobile, and its enlarged head and elongated eyes create a haunting atmosphere. “Pyne has said, ‘Animated films had given me the freedom and conviction to defy logic.’...Pyne had discarded the naturalism of the earlier years and seemed to be working out a stiff, two-dimensional figuration…The elongated eyes were black smudges, again a favourite device.” (Ella Datta, “Search for a Style”, Sathi Basu ed., Ganesh Pyne: His Life and Times, Kolkata: CIMA, 1998, p. 42, 44)

He skilfully layers brushstrokes and washes with precision to create a dreamlike, theatrical quality that he perfected over the years. Pyne was deeply influenced by the lyrical compositions of the Bengal School, particularly the art of Abanindranath and Gagendranath Tagore. The deliberate stiffness of the figure is counterbalanced by his use of light and shadow, the subtleties of which he imbibed from the works of the Tagores as well as Rembrandt’s chiaroscuros. “Pyne is, above all, a creator of atmospheres. His art remains motivated, despite periodic adjustments of style, palette and detail, by the quest for the expansion of consciousness: his paintings articulate his belief in the possibility of retrieving the enchantment of experience. Pyne more than thinks, he believes that the known can be amplified by contact with the unknown, that the alchemies of image-making can help transmute the base metal of being-in-the-world into the gold of refined perception.” (Ranjit Hoskote, “Reflections on the Art of Ganesh Pyne,” Ganesh Pyne: A Pilgrim in the Dominion of Shadows, Mumbai: Galerie 88, 2005, p. 10)

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