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Lot 49

 

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Manjit Bawa's art, like the artist himself, was a sensitive and complex amalgamation of influences that were vast and eclectic. Entirely figurative throughout his career, his work was deeply rooted in poetry and philosophy. For technique, he drew upon Mughal, Rajput and Pahari miniatures, as well as silk-screen printing, which he studied in Britain. For inspiration, he dove into stories from Indian mythology, as well as oral traditions of... Manjit Bawa's art, like the artist himself, was a sensitive and complex amalgamation of influences that were vast and eclectic. Entirely figurative throughout his career, his work was deeply rooted in poetry and philosophy. For technique, he drew upon Mughal, Rajput and Pahari miniatures, as well as silk-screen printing, which he studied in Britain. For inspiration, he dove into stories from Indian mythology, as well as oral traditions of story-telling and Sufi mysticism-achieving a transcendental quality in his works. By absorbing each of these elements, and a rigorous training in figurative drawing at the School of Art in Delhi, Bawa began distorting forms and created stylisations that were his own.

In the present lot, Bawa employs the same fluid, almost boneless quality that his figures of humans and animals are known for. Placed against a bright red, flat background, which fellow artist Jagdish Swaminathan likened to folk theatre backdrops, Bawa succeeds in creating an image that appears to be in "animated suspension. As the image is revealed, the backdrop itself becomes the enactment." (J Swaminathan, "Dogs Too Keep Night Watch," S Kalidas, Bhavna Bawa et al., Let's Paint the Sky Red: Manjit Bawa, New Delhi: Vadehra Art Gallery, pp. 36?37) With no indication of time, place or narrative, the fi gure in the present lot appears eternal, as if he could be part of a historical, or conversely, contemporary setting. "Manjit's art was not so much narrative as it was tersely idiomatic. Short staccato phrases pregnant with as many possibilities as the reader could read into them... Yet, with just the right gesture or a twist of the rubbery body his magical paintings could encapsulate whole Puranic legends and folk tales with a subversive sense of humour."(Kalidas, "Let's Paint the Sky Red," S Kalidas, Bawa et al., p. 19)

Around the same time when the present lot was painted, Bawa had a highly successful exhibition in Hong Kong. According to his biographer Ina Puri, "This was the first time we realized the potential of Indian art, especially Manjit's, had in the Far East." (Ina Puri, In Black and White: The Authorized Biography of Manjit Bawa, New Delhi: Vikings/Penguin Books India, 2006, p. 227)

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