Important Notice

Manjit Bawa's men, women, gods and animals are suspended wondrously in colorful space and are rendered with a simple fluidity that borders on the abstract, inspired by both the miniature traditions of India and the silkscreen processes he studied in England. Pared of all excess detail, they resemble nothing we have seen or experienced before. Rather than brushstroke and texture, Bawa relies on subtle shading and delicate tonal contrasts to... Manjit Bawa's men, women, gods and animals are suspended wondrously in colorful space and are rendered with a simple fluidity that borders on the abstract, inspired by both the miniature traditions of India and the silkscreen processes he studied in England. Pared of all excess detail, they resemble nothing we have seen or experienced before. Rather than brushstroke and texture, Bawa relies on subtle shading and delicate tonal contrasts to deliver depth to his canvases, and rather than developing a narrative, his efforts are concentrated on the perfection of form. Though this may seem a naïve aesthetic at first, these characteristics come together to give his paintings an arresting luminosity, and his characters a dreamlike presence.

As Ranjit Hoskote observes, Bawa's "...canvases are lambent spaces animated by a relish for colour and volume…Colour itself becomes a resonant variety of space: a luminous and neutral field, virtually unmarked by a specific sense of place, in which his isolated dream-figures can operate without laboring under the burden of allegiance to any single history…each form, animal and human, rejoices in its plasticity and libidinal energy, its gymnastic ability to defy the strictures of the anatomist. The rounded contours of each toy-like figure speak of its prana. The life-breath that gives it a vital buoyancy, allowing it to occupy rather than be trapped in those flat, glowing, single-colour fields of red, yellow, green or blue that are Bawa's hallmark device" (Manjit Bawa: Modern Miniatures Recent Paintings, Bose Pacia, New York, 2000, not paginated).

Deeply influenced by Sufi thought, the artist's subjects express simplicity not only in their form, but also in the relationships they share with each other and with the viewer. In the present lot, a large canvas titled 'Nayika' or actress, a female figure sits cross-legged against a light mustard-yellow backdrop. Her head draped with a deep red dupatta, the woman seems to be lost in reverie or, perhaps, caught up in a role she is playing. Underlining this condition, the world around her has been reduced by the artist to a flat field of saturated colour, from which all unessential details and elements have been condemned.

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