Important Notice

Vasudeo Santu Gaitonde, for the most part, lived a solitary, spiritually inclined life - the essence of which reflected palpably in his paintings. Born to Goan parents, he grew up in a chawl in the Girgaum area of Bombay. From his modest beginnings, and against all odds, he pursued an enigmatic quest toward abstraction, and is today regarded as one of the most formidable artists not only in India, but on the world art stage. In an... Vasudeo Santu Gaitonde, for the most part, lived a solitary, spiritually inclined life - the essence of which reflected palpably in his paintings. Born to Goan parents, he grew up in a chawl in the Girgaum area of Bombay. From his modest beginnings, and against all odds, he pursued an enigmatic quest toward abstraction, and is today regarded as one of the most formidable artists not only in India, but on the world art stage. In an interview, fellow artist Krishen Khanna stated, "There is a strong correlation I see between the way Gaitonde thought, the way he lived, and the way he painted." (Sandhini Poddar, V S Gaitonde: Painting as Process, Painting as Life, New York: The Solomon R Guggenheim Museum, 2014, p. 28) Gaitonde's ethereal canvases, including the present lot, exude the grand silences he alluded to when describing the act of painting.

Gaitonde's training began at the J J School of Arts in Bombay in 1945. "Gaitonde's formal initiation into the fine arts came at a momentous time, for India stood on the brink of independence, poised to throw off the yoke of British colonialism. The curriculum at the arts college largely followed the same pattern as the Royal Academy in London." (Meera Menezes, Vasudeo Santu Gaitonde: Sonata of Solitude, Mumbai: Bodhana Arts and Research Foundation, 2016, p. 48) Gaitonde, however, influenced by mentors like Shankar Palshikar and Jagannath Ahiwasi, also studied Indian miniatures. In his early works, he would adopt the bold colours and fine lines of the Basohli and Jain schools of painting. Gaitonde eventually gravitated towards Western Modernism, particularly works by Paul Klee. The latter's whimsical forms and colours opened up a new language of expression for Gaitonde.

In the early 1950s, Gaitonde was loosely associated with the influential Bombay Progressive Artists' Group, invited by M F Husain, and later the Bombay Group. Even in these collectives, Gaitonde charted his own course, "consciously choosing not to pay banal homage to the social and political causes of the time. The social relevance of art was of no particular interest to him, Gaitonde's kingdom was not of this world. Abstraction, with its emphasis on the autonomy of the aesthetic, liberated him from depicting matters temporal, and he was highly conscious of its emancipatory potential. He chose to focus instead of light and line, texture and tactility, opacity and translucence and on the evocative possibilities of colour." (Menezes, p. 27)

In 1957, Gaitonde broke away from all forms of figuration, choosing a "non-objective" mode of expression. According to Menezes, he embarked on a journey "that would take him from form to formlessness, from essaying an outward reality to conducting a deep search within." (Menezes, p. 98) This was further augmented by his choice of monochromatic colour palettes, which he achieved almost exclusively through the use of rollers and palette knives, instead of brushes. "A turning point in his life came after his encounter with Zen Buddhism through the book Zen in the Art of Archery. His engagement with Zen also gave him a deeper understanding of nature and his early forays into the realm of abstraction were evocative of both sea and landscape." (Menezes, p. 27) He was also inclined towards the philosophical and spiritual teachings of J Krishnamurti and Ramana Maharshi.

In 1968, he made a radical shift from his early horizontal canvases to a vertical format, which he retained through the rest of his career. Sometimes these canvases looked like ancient frescoes, punctuated by a horizontal band of colour, suspended forms, in heavy impasto. Gaitonde was awarded the Rockefeller Foundation Grant in 1964, which took him to New York, where he encountered Mark Rothko, one of America's foremost Abstract Expressionists. This trip furthered Gaitonde's experimentation with abstraction. Architect and friend of Gaitonde, Narendra Dengle writes, "There was no background on which something was painted but the entire work appeared like a dance of colours on canvas." (Narendra Dengle, "Gaitonde: The Spirit of his Painting," Journal of Landscape Architecture, No. 44, New Delhi: LA, Journal of Landscape Architecture, June 2015, p. 99)

Following two years which yielded of a group of blue-green vertical paintings, Gaitonde, in 1970 explored the subdued, earthy colour palette seen in the present lot. Speaking of a similar painting, Menezes writes: "...there is an ineffable quality to the painting, a lyricism in the handling of colour and light. Emotion and sensation in this work are conveyed by a subtle and delicate use of paint. By using a roller, the paint is spread finely across the surface, creating an ephemeral effect. An economy of expression is conveyed by a restrained and austere use of colour with its muddy and mossy tints, while the consummate play of light and darkness creates a harmonious whole." (Menezes, p. 159) A delicate yet earthy "dance on canvas" plays out with subtlety and lyricism in the present lot.

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