Important Notice

“My goal is the aesthetic appeal resulting from my visual experiences.” - N S BENDRE

N S Bendre’s genius lay in combining his deep-rooted influences like the colourful processions of his childhood-the painted big cats and tazias of Muharram and the rich finery of elephants on Ratha Jatra festival-with Western influences like French Impressionism, German Expressionism, and Cubism. The influence of Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque is... “My goal is the aesthetic appeal resulting from my visual experiences.” - N S BENDRE

N S Bendre’s genius lay in combining his deep-rooted influences like the colourful processions of his childhood-the painted big cats and tazias of Muharram and the rich finery of elephants on Ratha Jatra festival-with Western influences like French Impressionism, German Expressionism, and Cubism. The influence of Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque is evident in the distorted figures of his oeuvre, which he combined with a masterful use of colour. The artist has said, “Indian art is very tolerant. It has accepted a number of influences from outside, digested them and created its own art forms... The respect for the flat area on which to paint, the use of conceptual images understandable to the people at large, based on observation and memory, have been characteristic of Indian art. The colour orchestration that can have its impact on the Indian mind, dedication and devotion to the subject matter including geometrical forms working as magic, the resulting quality of peace of mind and serenity-all this is Indian.” (Artist quoted in Ram Chatterji, Bendré: The Painter and the Person, Mumbai: The Bendré Foundation for Art and Culture & Indus Corporation, 1990, p. 64)

As can be seen in the present lot, Bendre was a brilliant colourist who created a symphony on the canvas through his astute selection and rendering of hue. In the words of painter and art critics Ram Chatterji, “Bendré has time and again startled artists and art lovers with his innovative use of colour, his sensitivity to the play of subtle hues in nature, and his ability to transfer them to canvas with unmatched dexterity, whatever the medium.” (Chatterji, p. 1)

He honed his keen understanding of colour over a long practice starting with the State School of Art in Indore. Training under D D Deolalikar, he studied light and shadow intensively. Deolalikar believed that enhancing one’s power of perception led one to produce more skillful work. He directed his pupils to pay close attention to the light at each hour so that they could exhaustively tabulate all shades that showed up in nature over the course of a day and night. To develop their skills at rendering the world at night, he encouraged them to work by the light of hurricane lanterns. Bendre took to this with enthusiasm and would cycle into the night with his lantern to practice his art. His efforts developed his work well beyond the rest of his class. “Apart from their lessons in the classroom, they sought guidance from… their own observation of nature… Their main interest was light. They developed pronounced impressionistic leanings that influenced their palette and also introduced a directness in the handling of colour, discarding hard edges. Of the students who distinguished themselves in rendering this style, Bendré was undoubtedly the foremost.” (Chatterji, p. 12)

Observing nature minutely and recording it was a practice that the artist honed for the rest of his career and formed a cornerstone of his oeuvre. As Bendre summed up his method, “To me, creative art demands transforming raw material from surroundings observed deliberately or by chance into an integrated whole. The process has purpose and meaning. Meaning to the creator first and to others later.” (Chatterji, pp. 63-64)

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