It was in the early 1960s, when Gaitonde was working out of a small studio at the Bhulabhai Desai Memorial Institute in Mumbai, that he began his experiments with the layering of pigment and manipulation of light and texture to create a series of what he termed, not abstract, but ‘non-objective’ canvases. Influenced by Zen philosophy and the principles of minimalism, Gaitonde’s works from this period pulsate with an innate lyricism as well as a sense of mystery.

“For Gaitonde, art starts in intensity that moves steadily towards refining itself. The objectives, the quality one searches for comes by accident, unsought. All one can do is to apply oneself to master the craft, master one’s own sensibility, to work with almost stoic indifference and to wait on the time” (Pria Karunakar, “V.S. Gaitonde”, Lalit Kala Contemporary 19-20, Lalit Kala Akademi, New Delhi, 1975, p. 17).

Contemplating the bearing that Gaitonde’s stay at the Bhulabhai Institute had on his work from the period, like this shadowy gray-blue canvas, fellow artist Prabhakar Kolte notes that the artist would come out onto the lawns of the Institute and spend “…hours on end staring at the infinite vastness of the sea before him…A very important element that may have attracted his attention may have been the horizon. You can see it but it does not actually exist…If you take one step towards it, it takes one step back…It was probably this play of experiencing infinity that pushed Gaitonde back into the womb of that imaginary, evasive line. The journey of Gaitonde’s visual sensitivities meandered through undecipherable formlessness towards an independent form. His paintings came into existence bearing the trademark of his genius and as nothing but paintings in themselves” (“Husain and Gaitonde”, From Art to Art – Essays and Critique by Prabhakar Kolte, Bodhana Arts Foundation, Mumbai, 2008, p. 80).

It was in the early 1960s, when Gaitonde was working out of a small studio at the Bhulabhai Desai Memorial Institute in Mumbai, that he began his experiments with the layering of pigment and manipulation of light and texture to create a series of what he termed, not abstract, but ‘non-objective’ canvases. Influenced by Zen philosophy and the principles of minimalism, Gaitonde’s works from this period