Important Notice

Even as a young artist, Manjit Bawa was resolute in his intention to not follow any current fads but instead draw on his personal inspirations to create a unique artistic style. Being interested in forms and having been deeply influenced by the natural world, Bawa’s experiments organically produced a style that displayed “the painter’s predilection for pure design and visual syntaxing of human and animal forms in a strictly non- representational... Even as a young artist, Manjit Bawa was resolute in his intention to not follow any current fads but instead draw on his personal inspirations to create a unique artistic style. Being interested in forms and having been deeply influenced by the natural world, Bawa’s experiments organically produced a style that displayed “the painter’s predilection for pure design and visual syntaxing of human and animal forms in a strictly non- representational and rigorously formalised manner in flat space.” (Samir Dasgupta, Recent Works: Exhibition Tour 2004, Mumbai: Sakshi Gallery and Gurgaon: The Laburnam, 2004) Bawa’s use of a flat monochromatic background for his subjects arises from his practise as a printmaker for which he trained in London. It allowed him to streamline his compositions into the minimalist works he became known for. The present lot features animals-a squirrel and a goat-that are delicately rendered in graceful lines to highlight their gentle and tender nature. The goat is an important part of Bawa’s iconography which draws from Indian mythology, nature and Sufi philosophy to be, in the artist’s words, “redefined through the medium of art and my configuration” into his distinctive figuration. (Manjit Bawa to Ina Puri, “Finding Myself,” Manjit Bawa: Recent Paintings, Mumbai and Bangalore: Sakshi Gallery and Kolkata: Sama’a, 2001) The sinuous quality of these figures recall Rajput and Pahari miniature paintings while giving expression to his remarkable vision. The artist Jagdish Swaminathan said of Bawa’s forms, “Manjit’s figure is at once an assertion of a tradition and its negation… There is a certain bonelessness, a pneumatic quality to Manjit’s figure which echoes both folk Pahari painting and the tantric frescoes of Himalayan Buddhism.” (Jagdish Swaminathan, “Dogs Too Keep Night Watch,” S Kalidas, Let’s Paint the Sky Red: Manjit Bawa, New Delhi: Vadehra Art Gallery, 2011, p. 36)

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