Important Notice

“I paint as I like. It is a compelling passion with me to keep alive and I cannot help painting or sculpting.” - SADANAND BAKRE

Sadanand Bakre, the only sculptor among the founding members of the influential Progressive Artists’ Group, maintained an inseparable connection between his practices as both sculptor and painter. He took up painting seriously after moving to London in 1950, favouring abstraction over the academic realism... “I paint as I like. It is a compelling passion with me to keep alive and I cannot help painting or sculpting.” - SADANAND BAKRE

Sadanand Bakre, the only sculptor among the founding members of the influential Progressive Artists’ Group, maintained an inseparable connection between his practices as both sculptor and painter. He took up painting seriously after moving to London in 1950, favouring abstraction over the academic realism he had trained in. He remarked, “I am traditionally trained and perfectly capable of accomplishing completely realistic work. But my interest in forms has gone far beyond the dull imitations of subject matter, which to me is almost unimportant.” (S K Bakre, “All Art is Either Good or Bad”, Free Press Bulletin, 24 March, 1965)

Bakre’s paintings from the late 1950s and 1960s often feel like extensions of his sculptural work, as seen in the present lot, where dynamic, spiky forms are anchored by bold lines. Explaining the significance of these geometric forms, the artist has said, “I saw everything mathematically. Everything depended on three parts not four, so it became a spike. Originally it was a trikone (triangle) and then it went on to other things. The number three struck me so when I painted it was three bottles, three trays, if I painted another one it did not give me satisfaction… It was a geometrical, mathematical phase. I felt the need to do this from some unknown experience of balance.” (Artist quoted in Yashodhara Dalmia, “The View from the Wings”, The Making of Modern Indian Art, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2001, p. 194)

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