Important Notice

Jogen Chowdhury’s works memorialise his vivid imagination and surrealist vision, retaining the dynamism and uncommon fusion of realism and abstraction. While his commitment to the human form was consistent, a wide array of objects and elements presented curious symbolism. His works have been admired by his contemporaries as well as posthumously for their prodigious originality. In K G Subramanyan’s words-“I am struck by the simple devices he... Jogen Chowdhury’s works memorialise his vivid imagination and surrealist vision, retaining the dynamism and uncommon fusion of realism and abstraction. While his commitment to the human form was consistent, a wide array of objects and elements presented curious symbolism. His works have been admired by his contemporaries as well as posthumously for their prodigious originality. In K G Subramanyan’s words-“I am struck by the simple devices he contrives this with-a strange fusion of graphic sophistication and naivete: an over-layering of languor, not tension, on his human subjects… In reverse, he projects on the things he paints-plants, pots, flowers and fruit? a weird or voluptuous figuration and animates them with an awkward libido.” (K G Subramanyan, “Speaking of Jogen,” A Special Issue on Jogen Chowdhury (Bengali), Nandimukh Publication, 2002, p. 11)

Chowdhury was born in the Faridpur district of British India’s East Bengal province, now Bangladesh, in 1939. He was merely eight years old when he witnessed great human loss and suffering during the Partition and was forced to migrate to West Bengal. These experiences of turmoil never left Chowdhury and reflected in myriad ways in his works. His journey as an artist began at the Government College of Art and Craft in Kolkata in 1955. He was awarded a French Government Scholarship to study at the École des Beaux-Arts, Paris, in 1965, under the famous Atelier 17 of William Hayter. “Other than European portraits and sketches, it was here in Paris that he started drawing those quirky, fleshed out torsos of naked elderly men and women with thin and knotted fingers and queer arms. These distinct torsos had a monumental as well as mesmeric quality-as if the flesh had turned into crackled textures hewn by his brush.” (Uma Nair, “Jogen Chowdhury: Alchemy of Expression,” Visiting Indian Masters, New Delhi: Indian Council for Cultural Relations, p. 7, online)

Chowdhury witnessed works by great masters in museums in Europe and upon his return to India in 1968, he was shrouded in a great uncertainty of subject and his own artistic vocabulary. He did not paint for a year but wrote substantially, about a hundred-page manuscript which was later published in 1994 in a Bengali fortnightly magazine Desh in four consecutive issues. In search of originality and an authentic expression of his experiences, he realised, “My memories, my dreams, my thoughts, my environment-they could all become subjects of my works.” (Jogen Chowdhury, “About My Painting,” Jogen Chowdhury: Enigmatic Visions, Himeji: Glenbarra Art Museum, 2005, p. 29)

In 1969, in Madras, Chowdhury began an important and unforgettable series of paintings titled Reminiscence of a Dream in ink, wash and mixed media on paper, of which the present lot is a part. The themes of dreams and surrealism comprise a crucial part of his oeuvre. These enigmatic visions were, according to him, charged with sexuality and unintended traces of Freud’s psychoanalysis. “When he was younger and dreamt youthful dreams of desire, he expressed himself in riddles projecting his libidinal longing as fruits, flowers, fish, pillows and other objects.” (R Siva Kumar, “Jogen Chowdhury: Lyric and Enigmatic Visions,” Jogen Chowdhury: Enigmatic Visions, Himeji: Glenbarra Art Museum, 2005, p. 10)

In the Reminiscence of a Dream series, objects and elements float, charged with tension and a hallucinating effect. “From then on, Jogen’s incisive contour defines the object or figure that is then masked by a flat black (sometimes white) background against which it is positioned like a puppet against a drop-curtain.” (Geeta Kapur, Jogen Chowdhury: Smearing the Ghost with Ink, Berlin: The Fine Art Resource, 1999) The flat application of intense black ink is a persistent feature in Chowdhury's works of this time with muted colours layered with minute cross hatching, stitched to make textural forms. He explains, “It creates a psychological ambience. Black is used for darkness, depression and, of course, the secret subterranean tendencies in man. Then again, black is needed to show light; the brightness of light is made brighter with the counterpoint of black.” (Artist quoted in an interview with Rita Datta, “Black Shines Bright,” Jogen Chowdhury: His Life and Times, Kolkata: CIMA, 2005, p. 44)

“The ability to render the dream-like substance. this magical combination of the finite. the tangible and the fantastic. marks the pictures of Joqen Chowdhury. A taste for the erotic is introduced by organic shapes. full. supple. supine. Yet at the same time they are tantalisingly unreal: suspended. they float: both in memory and on the canvas.” (Geeti Sen, “Reminiscences of a Dream,” A Special Issue on Jogen Chowdhury (Bengali), Nandimukh Publication, 2002, p. 33) Reminiscence of a Dream 12 is propped up with a snake circumscribing a flower and a larger half of a flower forms the bottom panel. The slithery snakeskin and leathery flower petals are manipulated to make them appear texturally rich though lifeless. “There is something erotic about a long snake that encircles a tiny flower in Dream 12 (1969)...The Dream series continued for some seven years unabated 1969 to 1976.” (Sen, p. 32, 34)

Scholars note indigenous references in Chowdhury’s works, popular painting and prints such as Kalighat paintings in which one finds references to the everyday world and an abundance of animals. Multiple short lines are also reminiscent of the kantha technique, a time-honoured practice of sewing pieces of fabric to create patchwork cloth, passed down for centuries in the Bengali regions of India. These influences creep into Jogen’s works organically to form his globally acknowledged style of which the present lot is exemplar.

Read More
Artist Profile
Other works of this artist in: this auction  |  entire site