Important Notice

Lot 19

One of India`s most celebrated women artists, Anjolie Ela Menon`s oeuvre is large and diverse. However, the present lot, an almost monochromatic painting that quietly indicates the artist`s hopes for the future, points out a subject that has remained with Menon throughout her long career – the enigmatic, introspective figure. Inspired by Tanjore paintings and orthodox icons from Russia, this oil and gold leaf on board reveals the artist`s desire... One of India`s most celebrated women artists, Anjolie Ela Menon`s oeuvre is large and diverse. However, the present lot, an almost monochromatic painting that quietly indicates the artist`s hopes for the future, points out a subject that has remained with Menon throughout her long career – the enigmatic, introspective figure. Inspired by Tanjore paintings and orthodox icons from Russia, this oil and gold leaf on board reveals the artist`s desire to take the mythic and spiritual and bring a certain corporality and immediacy to it. In Menon`s opinion, every person is a prophet of the future, as each of us is responsible for the way in which it unfolds. Through the prophet she paints, Menon seems to suggest that if our thoughts and actions are governed by a pure heart, the future will not disappoint us. In addition to corporality, the use of the gold-heart motif in this piece conveys the importance Menon places in positive human relationships, and the value they hold in determining things that transcend their individual participants.

Reminiscent of her `Open-Heart` series of the early 1980s, the heart of the figure in this piece, along with its branching arteries that reach out to his hands, face and head were originally inspired by a medical treatise of 1890 that Menon discovered in a German attic. The artist became “…fascinated by the almost abstract beauty of internal human organs and the perfect order of their placement and functioning” (Isana Murti, “Through the Patina” in Anjolie Ela Menon: Paintings in Private Collections, 1995, p. 35).

Read More
Artist Profile
Other works of this artist in: this auction  |  entire site