Important Notice

"I wanted to reflect society's gaze, the way they perceive women."
- G RAVINDER REDDY

Women have been the primary focus of G Ravinder Reddy's work throughout his artistic oeuvre. Drawing inspiration from both the sacred and the mundane, whether it were the gilded sculptural forms of temple deities or the everyday working women he saw in Bombay in the early 1980s, Reddy's "work is a celebration of the female form,... "I wanted to reflect society's gaze, the way they perceive women."
- G RAVINDER REDDY

Women have been the primary focus of G Ravinder Reddy's work throughout his artistic oeuvre. Drawing inspiration from both the sacred and the mundane, whether it were the gilded sculptural forms of temple deities or the everyday working women he saw in Bombay in the early 1980s, Reddy's "work is a celebration of the female form, encapsulated by his eye for detail as well as his respect for the feminine - whether depicted as giant heads or figurative, voluptuous sculptures... In all his depictions, whether it's the nudes or figures inspired from scenes in everyday life... there is a tremendous, but restrained sensuality." (Akhila Ranganna, "Why sculptor G Ravinder Reddy is obsessed with large, disembodied heads of women," scroll.in, 7 August 2017, online)

According to Martha Jakimowicz, Reddy's approach in portraying women and the process of sculpting their physical form is both "...sensitive to and celebratory of how they are to themselves and one [that] acknowledges their simple exuberance and their assured, powerful presence... Working with live sitters, Reddy models first in clay and his figures retain much of the lively and dynamic directness of an attuned realistic portrayal together with a palpable sensuous feel of rich flesh, smooth, shiny skin and plump folds sated in lush maturity. His women never seduce or display themselves. Their nudity is naturally and comfortably open - graceful, calm and dignified, sometimes with a tinge of the endearingly awkward. Thanks to an amount of simplification and regularity, an emphasis on volume pushing out from inside, the figures gain a universal quality and some of the sublime monumentality of classical statuary which is also generated by their sheer size. The icons, yet, do not leave the present, since cast in fiberglass and covered by glossy, opaque commercial paint, they absorb a contemporary, popular feel... Fleeting emotions merge under the persistent sense of wondrous joy, as the women's huge, wide open eyes look right into the viewer and further as well as inside them, as if not noticing the spectator." ("Volatile Allure: Metamorphoses of the Ethnic Woman," Enchanting the Icon, Mumbai: Sakshi Gallery, 2003, p. 15)

The present lot was once part of Timeless Art, an exhibition celebrating the Times of India newspaper's sesquicentennial year, with works on display at the Victoria Terminus (now Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus) railway station in Mumbai in 1988. Curated by Pritish Nandy, who was then the publishing director of the newspaper, the exhibition culminated in an auction of select works, including the present lot, held a month later aboard a ship Image courtesy of Barla Bhargav at the docks at Navy Nagar.

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