Important Notice

Lot 12

 

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"The human figure, and human joy and sorrow, occupied an important place in my compositions" - K K HEBBAR

Modernist K K Hebbar was an artist who discovered a world of art outside his own, and found ways to incorporate his experience into his own expression. Hebbar's works often combined the abstract with the figurative, integrating the representational, the metaphysical, the suggestive and symbolic to achieve, in his own words,... "The human figure, and human joy and sorrow, occupied an important place in my compositions" - K K HEBBAR

Modernist K K Hebbar was an artist who discovered a world of art outside his own, and found ways to incorporate his experience into his own expression. Hebbar's works often combined the abstract with the figurative, integrating the representational, the metaphysical, the suggestive and symbolic to achieve, in his own words, inner satisfaction. (K K Hebbar, Voyage in Images, Mumbai: Jehangir Art Gallery, 1991) The following four lots belong to the early figurative phase of the artist's career during the 1950s. In their subject matter, these works exhibit a diverse range of inspirations - including Hebbar's travels to Indonesia, as seen in lot 9 - and preoccupations - specifically, music and rural, working people, as seen in lots 10 and 12.

Hebbar's agility with the line, be it in drawing or painting, is matched only by the grace of the figures those lines animate. The unique visual language of Hebbar's work stems from his deep grounding in the culture and traditional arts of Karnataka, particularly those of dance, drama and music that he encountered growing up in the picturesque village of Kattingeri. "Even as a child... Hebbar was captivated by the songs and dances and dazzlingly colourful costumes of Yakshagana, the folk play of coastal Karnataka... Song and dance and colour have remained interwoven in his mind ever since." (H Y Sharada Prasad, The Book I Won't be Writing and Other Essays, New Delhi: D C Publishers, 2003, p. 215) These early impressionable years left an impact on his artistic style, which has been deemed as a "happy combination of rustic imagination and urban sophisticate plastically expressed." (V R Amberkar, Hebbar: Lalit Kala Series, New Delhi: Lalit Kala Akademi, p. ii)

A student of the J J School of Art, Hebbar - like his contemporaries - struggled to throw off the yoke of the school's rigid academic style of painting. He explored and studied illustrations from Jain manuscripts, Rajput and Mughal miniatures and Ajanta murals. "I discovered that in these works the themes chosen were mostly religious or the life of the elite; whereas I preferred to depict rural life using the traditional techniques that I was familiar with." (K K Hebbar, Voyage in Images) People, especially the working classes, were central to Hebbar's practice, and appear either as the protagonists of the works or populating the larger landscape, engaged with their daily labour or gracefully engrossed in lighter revelries, as seen lot 10. His drawings and paintings typically focus on figures from village life, fisherfolk, kathak dancers and folk musicians - or even classical musicians, as seen in lot 12.

Hebbar travelled extensively, within India and internationally. As early as 1949, he went to Europe on a study tour, eventually settling in Paris to study at the Academie Julian. This period led to wider exposure to Western art, and Hebbar returned to India having explored many influences, and yearning to establish his own identity as an artist. "The lyricism and soothing quality of Indian music, the grace and rhythmic quality of Indian dance, both folk and classical, inspired me to express my feelings in line and colour. I took lessons in Kathak for about two years under the noted Pandit Sunder Prasad, an experience which helped me to infuse rhythm into my drawings." (Hebbar, Voyages in Images) Lot 12 exemplifies Hebbar's passion for music - not only in subject matter, but also in the symphonically expressive atmosphere of the painting.

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