Important Notice

The present lot, painted in 2002, is perhaps one of the last works that Bhupen Khakhar created before his death the following year. In these final months, Khakhar - terminally ill and battling the last stages of cancer - was deeply influenced by the Buddhist imagery and culture he encountered on an artists' trip to Sri Lanka earlier that year. Although he was physically unable to visit any actual sites, he nonetheless observed and absorbed... The present lot, painted in 2002, is perhaps one of the last works that Bhupen Khakhar created before his death the following year. In these final months, Khakhar - terminally ill and battling the last stages of cancer - was deeply influenced by the Buddhist imagery and culture he encountered on an artists' trip to Sri Lanka earlier that year. Although he was physically unable to visit any actual sites, he nonetheless observed and absorbed everything he could and depicted several paintings with Buddhist imagery after his return to Baroda.

After a visit to the Buddhist rock temple of Gal Vihara in Polonnaruwa, "Khakhar painted small watercolours based on the enormous rock relief of the recumbent Buddha (eyelids lowered, lying on his right side with one arm bent and hand under the head, the other arm laid against the gentle contour of the body: a posture embodying the transcendent state termed parinirvana/parinabanna)." (Geeta Kapur, "Mortality Morbidity Masquerade," Chris Dercon and Nada Raza eds., Bhupen Khakhar: You Can't Please All, London: Tate Publishing, 2016, p. 164) This image dominates the present lot, along with the well-known iconography of an emaciated Buddha under the Bodhi Tree during his period of renunciation.

At this last stage of his career, Khakhar oscillated between painting works where the human body was ravaged by illness, interspersed with meditative works that revealed a philosophical and tranquil vision, such as the present lot. "Buddhist motifs of inward-looking 'avalokiteswaras' or a quiet 'flight of the soul' populate these canvases, resplendent in luminous red and gold, marking a dramatic shift from his almost 40 years of quizzical interrogation of human frailties..." (Sadanand Menon, "You Can't Please All," The Hindu, 14 September 2003, online)

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