Important Notice

A prolific writer, educator, and social reformer, Rabindranath Tagore took up painting late in life, in his sixties. What began as drawings on his manuscripts turned into a collection of more than 2,000 drawings and paintings produced in the last decade of his life. His artistic style was characterised by simple, bold, rhythmic forms. This interplay between the familiar and the unfamiliar allowed him to create shapes that were both expressive... A prolific writer, educator, and social reformer, Rabindranath Tagore took up painting late in life, in his sixties. What began as drawings on his manuscripts turned into a collection of more than 2,000 drawings and paintings produced in the last decade of his life. His artistic style was characterised by simple, bold, rhythmic forms. This interplay between the familiar and the unfamiliar allowed him to create shapes that were both expressive and inventive. He often subverted his belief in the beauty of nature through “certain motifs like beaked and clawed birdlike creatures, intricate reptilian faces and bodies, grotesque heads melded from interlocking units of varying complexity or hybrids of these; some dark and flat as shadows, others light and intricate like filigree, and yet others compact and dense like carved or sculpted objects.” (R Siva Kumar ed., R Siva Kumar, Rabindrachitravali: Paintings of Rabindranath Tagore, Volume 1, R Siva Kumar ed., Kolkata: Pratikshan, 2011, p. 19) His line displays a calligraphic fluidity and a masterly control of the pen with a rhythm that he considered vital to his work. The present lot was sketched on an envelope printed for Sankhya, the Indian Journal of Statistics, which was founded in 1933 by Prashanti Chandra Mahalanobis. Tagore had a close relationship with Mahalanobis, who frequently travelled with him abroad, and wrote the introductory essay for Volume II, Part 1 of the 1935 Sankhya publication.

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