Important Notice

Born in Indore in 1910, Bendre was one of the most distinguished pioneers of modern Indian art. As a painter and teacher, he relentlessly experimented with the adaptation of the technical and stylistic innovations that were taking the European art world by storm to Indian themes and subjects. Through his career, he closely followed the development of Expressionism, Impressionism, Cubism, and Pointillism, interpreting their philosophical... Born in Indore in 1910, Bendre was one of the most distinguished pioneers of modern Indian art. As a painter and teacher, he relentlessly experimented with the adaptation of the technical and stylistic innovations that were taking the European art world by storm to Indian themes and subjects. Through his career, he closely followed the development of Expressionism, Impressionism, Cubism, and Pointillism, interpreting their philosophical underpinnings to fit his bucolic landscapes and tranquil images of rural life in India.

Even after Bendre retired from his teaching position in Baroda and moved to Mumbai, his artistic experimentation with colour, style and form did not come to an end. Following a brief period of abstraction, Bendre used his new found time and freedom to study the figure once again. More specifically, the artist turned to painting the rural Indian women he had encountered on his extensive travels around the country, engaged in various household, work-related and leisurely activities.

The present lot, a large canvas from 1979 executed in the pointillist style, marks the zenith of one of the most important phases in Bendre's oeuvre, and illustrates his unique response to European Modernism. Here, the artist combines the scientific style of pointillism, pioneered by Georges Seurat in the late nineteenth century, with his subjective, expressive vision of India's people and landscapes to create a vivid scene that reflects his distinctive artistic sensibility and the environs he was so familiar with.

Unlike most of Bendre's idyllic vignettes of rural life from the period, however, this canvas focuses on a large group of Lamani or Banjara women rather than a single village figure. Also, instead of a timeless domestic scene, the setting here is a transitory one, illustrating the itinerant lifestyle of the subjects. Seated outside their makeshift tents wearing their characteristic colourful outfits and heavy silver jewelry, some of the nomadic women tend to their children and the few animals around them, while others cook the evening meal for their families, soon to return from the day's labour.

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