Important Notice

A pioneer of Indian modernism, K.K. Hebbar combined Indian and Western influences in both his style and the subjects he chose to portray. Early in his career, he renounced the academic realism that he was trained in at the Sir J.J. School of Art in Mumbai for a more personal idiom that better suited the themes he wanted to explore in his work. "Hebbar is a difficult artist to tag a name on. He is unorthodox, though trained in an orthodox western... A pioneer of Indian modernism, K.K. Hebbar combined Indian and Western influences in both his style and the subjects he chose to portray. Early in his career, he renounced the academic realism that he was trained in at the Sir J.J. School of Art in Mumbai for a more personal idiom that better suited the themes he wanted to explore in his work. "Hebbar is a difficult artist to tag a name on. He is unorthodox, though trained in an orthodox western style. Avowedly an Indian mannerist, he is free from pseudo-traditional clichés. Though a lover of non-realistic forms, he is not an abstractionist. Deeply interested in the inter- weave of forms and space, he cannot be called a cubist. The different modalities of modern painting, however, are touched on and off, without making a creed" (V.R. Amberkar, Hebbar, Lalit Kala Akademi, New Delhi, 1960, not paginated).

Influenced by the work of artists ranging from Amrita Sher-Gil to Paul Gauguin, and by various schools of Indian miniatures, Hebbar painted landscapes inspired by pan-Indian themes. His narratives, however, were localized by the specific places he had travelled to, and depicted events from the everyday life of the common man. The present lot, a fishing scene, is part of a larger series of canvases depicting India's coasts and fishing communities that the artist continued to paint well into the 1990s. Like his other work, this painting showcases Hebbar's confident yet graceful line and his unique daubing application of colour on the surface.

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