Important Notice

"My works have introverted quality with intense feelings. When I paint or draw, I also establish a relationship with my subjects. As a social being, it becomes natural. It serves multiple purposes."
- JOGEN CHOWDHURY

Jogen Chowdhury's art steers clear of Western trends, instead favouring a uniquely Indian approach that is deeply inspired by traditional folklore and Indian family values. Though the Bengal influence in his work... "My works have introverted quality with intense feelings. When I paint or draw, I also establish a relationship with my subjects. As a social being, it becomes natural. It serves multiple purposes."
- JOGEN CHOWDHURY

Jogen Chowdhury's art steers clear of Western trends, instead favouring a uniquely Indian approach that is deeply inspired by traditional folklore and Indian family values. Though the Bengal influence in his work is undeniable, his attention to figuration and his skilful composition ensures its universal appeal.

Chowdhury's artistic oeuvre spans over six decades and presents his observations of people and their quotidian lives. "People for me are an increasingly sophisticated and alluring proposition when I look for a subject. Gone are the days when I did studies, now it is the chemistry of two people in heated conversation that stirs the stimulus within me." (Artist quoted in Uma Nair, Jogen Chowdhury: Abahoman - Floating Life, New Delhi: Vadehra Art Gallery, 2007, p. 7) As a result, Chowdhury's works continue to be "deeply engaged with the manner of living, the minutiae of his milieu, the general 'drama of life' unfolding around him: intimate portraitures, paintings/drawings of man, plant and animal life." (Nawaid Anjum, "Jogen Chowdhury: The Enchantment of the Everyday," The Punch Magazine, 31 December 2020, online)

The freely rendered, and often distorted, figures in Chowdhury's art stand out due to the manner in which he "weaves the saris or odhini of the women or the dhoti of the men into spectacular contemporary forms that tell the magic of the tale." (Nair, pp. 7-8) At the same time, he "coats his images in garb and satire, fleshing out their rotundities with an eye for detailing and traditional delineating techniques" that give his works "a profound sense of solidity and monumentality that seems to belong to another age." (Nair, p. 8)

Chowdhury adopted his trademark style of minute cross-hatching in his art in the 1960s. This was a conscious decision that went hand-in-hand with his preference for using ink and pastel to render the unbroken, meandering lines that featured in the majority of his works. The cross-hatching technique, usually using black ink, helped Chowdhury "build up a surface quality that wouldn't be possible with watercolour and brush. I've been doing this for years, using the minute mesh of criss-cross lines to which different tones are added. I find that this technique lends sensitivity to the pictures and is hence vital to my art." (Artist quoted in Rakhi Sarkar, Jogen Chowdhury and Rita Dutta, Jogen Chowdhury: His Life and Times, Kolkata: CIMA Gallery Pvt. Ltd., 2006, p. 44)

Both On a Midsummer Day, 2020 (lot 26) and Situation 'A', 1993 (lot 27) highlight Chowdhury's use of the tight network of intersecting lines set against a solid background that helps in increasing the overall visual impact of each image. "Jogen Chowdhury has developed a highly original idiom which allows him to explore a private world of real and imaginary beings, of dreams, fantasies, childhood recollections, as well as objects and people he sees in his environment. Working in ink and pastel he builds up his images in a fastidious process of cross-hatching, allowing a mild tint of colour gradually to seep in. This gives his images a dull, pellucid sheen, which is emphasised by the dark background against which they are set." (Deepak Ananth, "An Engagement with Reality," India Myth and Reality: Aspects of Modern Indian Art, Oxford: Museum of Modern Art, 1982, p. 58)

While the figures in Chowdhury's earlier works had a surreal element to them, he began to pay more attention to the human form and human interactions on a personal level in his later works. A closer examination of Situation 'A', 1993 (lot 27) shows his characters sharing a small and cramped space but lacking any form of intimacy or emotional connection. Their bodies have a slightly distorted quality to them that almost borders on the grotesque. The only character appearing to show any form of interest in the dance of the central figure is the bird with its multi-coloured mosaic-like wings.

Chowdhury's On a Midsummer Day, 2020 (lot 26), on the other hand, is a more recent work. Made during the early months of the pandemic, it depicts a woman lying down on her bed and reading. There is a sense of stillness in the work that is brought out through the posture of the painted figure that only serves to highlight Chowdhury's belief of how humans have a deep, interconnected relationship with the environment and the world at large.

Both lots have been created with consummate skill and highlight a quiet tension that appears to linger in the empty spaces between or surrounding his characters. "Mental re-enactments make the gesticulations and the juxtapositions of bodies more loaded, but also cause the images to waver between message and hieroglyph, narration and symbolism. It makes the images more complex, also more tantalising. Meaning rustles through the characters and situations, creating ripples, but passing by without settling into a narrative." (Masanori Fukuoka, R Siva Kumar and Jogen Chowdhury, "Jogen Chowdhury: Lyric and Enigmatic Visions," Jogen Chowdhury: Enigmatic Visions, Japan: Glenbarra Art Museum, 2005, p. 11)

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