Important Notice

"The colours and the simplicity of people I met fascinated me."
- MANJIT BAWA

Bawa’s work has consistently explored the complex relationship between man and animal, thus highlighting his lifelong interest in non-verbal communication and harmony between all living beings. This exploration and its subsequent representation on his canvasses have also evolved with subtlety over the decades. While the 1970s saw his paintings... "The colours and the simplicity of people I met fascinated me."
- MANJIT BAWA

Bawa’s work has consistently explored the complex relationship between man and animal, thus highlighting his lifelong interest in non-verbal communication and harmony between all living beings. This exploration and its subsequent representation on his canvasses have also evolved with subtlety over the decades. While the 1970s saw his paintings presenting "man as a brute - a conqueror with sword and shield," the representation of this relationship transitioned over time to a point where Bawa painted "the two in harmony, coming together as if in a trance, the focus on their interlocking bodies." (Amrita Jhaveri, A Guide to 101 Modern and Contemporary Indian Artists, Mumbai: India Book House Pvt. Ltd., 2005, p. 16) The present lot achieves this harmony between the man and his cat.

This emphasis on human-animal interactions highlights Bawa's lifelong interest in non-verbal communication and harmony between all living beings. "In Bawa's paintings, humans and animals engage in a wordless dialogue that throws its participants back onto an older, nearly forgotten language of instinct and intuition. Standing before these paintings, we realize that Bawa has long been preoccupied with the theme of a universal language of communication. How, he appears to ask, do humans and animals account for one another's presence, share their responses? Bawa's question unveils a deeper disquietude: how can two beings, who share the same physical environment but occupy separate mental universes, compare their respective experiences of the world?" (Ranjit Hoskote and Ina Puri, Manjit Bawa: Modern Miniatures, Recent Paintings, New York: Bose Pacia Modern, 2000, unpaginated)

Art historian Geeti Sen reinforces this notion. "This interaction between man and beast forms a vital undercurrent in all Bawa's paintings. It is significant that the meditational form in his canvas could be an animal, as much as it could be a human form or a demigod or a deity." (S Kalidas, Bhavna Bawa et al, Manjit Bawa: Let's Paint the Sky Red, New Delhi: Vadehra Art Gallery, 2011, p. 77)

The present lot presents a lyrical composition of a man and his cat. There is a harmonious trust in the way both have been painted with the cat leaning forward to eat out of the bowl the man is holding up. Commenting on Bawa's recognisable manner of drawing human and animal bodies, Krishen Khanna says, "The balloon-like shapes found an easy transition into his human, animal and plant shapes. He was making a philosophical assertion in addition to the aesthetic which naturally followed. He was implying that the same force inhabits all creation." (Krishen Khanna quoted in S Kalidas, Bhavna Bawa et al, p. 101)

The present lot is also reminiscent of Bawa's artistic technique that evolved from two distinct traditions - Pahari miniature painting, whose vocabulary consisted of a fixed set of images, and silkscreen printing, made up of smooth and flat colours. His figures, though supple, rubbery, and shaded with soft gradations that stem from his training in silkscreen painting, possess the gracefulness of those seen in miniature painting. This grace carries forward in works such as the present lot and is used by the artist to suggest layers of hidden intent in the actions of his figures.

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