Collection of Indian Printmaking

Kanchan Chander: Incarnation of Tolerance

2012-02-13T18:14:00.000-08:00

One again, Kanchan Chander gives us an image of "femininity" that contains the possibility of multiple interpretations. The young woman casts her eyes downwards, pensively contemplating the long-stemmed flower she holds in her hands. Is she waiting for a husband? A lover? Or perhaps she is not waiting at all...perhaps this person has just departed? Is she pondering an unbearable absence? Thinking over this person's words? Has the flower been given to her by a sweetheart as a token of love? By a husband apologizing for his bad behavior? Or has she picked it herself in lonely isolation?

The power of images such as this one is their ability to conjure emotions in us that well up from poignant subliminal narratives. Chander has constructed the image beautifully: the echo of flowers that seem scribbled on the wall behind her (as if signifying her thoughts), the economic simplicity with which she conveys the feel of a sitting place just outside a home, the ominous outline of the woman's own shadow...an eerie presence indicating darker thoughts and/or and situations.

Like The Ephemeral Beauty (discussed in the previous post) Incarnation of Tolerance dates from the early days of Chander's involvement with the Indian Printmakers Guild. Quite probably it was also printed at Garhi Studios in New Delhi.

Kanchan Chander: The Ephemeral Beauty

2012-02-11T19:45:00.001-08:00

In a recent article I wrote for Art Etc. newsandviews (see: "A Note on Prints, Reproductions and Editions" in the October, 2011, issue), I cautioned beginning print collectors about the "loophole" of the Artist Proof. Within that article I had argued that the Artist Proof was initially intended as a kind of superior template that would set the standard for proper inking, registration and colouration, a print against which all others in a projected edition could be matched for consistency and quality. Artist Proofs were thought to be special, rare, and of high quality. For the most part this concept theoretically holds true, though often not in practice. The use of the designation "A/P" on a print has sadly become a not-so-clever way for artists to extend the number of marketable prints far beyond what penciled edition numbers indicate.

But perhaps my judgement on this matter has been too harsh. In the making of any print (such as this etching by Kanchan Chander above), a competent printmaker will take many preliminary impressions while perfecting the final, editioned, image. In the case of Chander's The Ephemeral Beauty, the print at the top of this post is marked "Proof", while the bottom print has an incomplete fraction (missing the denominator) that suggests a trial experimentation with edition. In email correspondence with the artist, Kanchan herself was at a loss to explain the missing denominator, pointing out that the print had been made so long ago. She guessed that it might have been a very early print she hoped to turn into an edition, but had not yet decided upon the edition size, thus numbering only the top of the fraction.

It was hard for me to make a choice between these two renditions of the same image. The partially numbered print is obviously the more dramatic: the additional shading emphasizes the brooding nature of the figure, and even the highlights are worked in a manner that transmits more detail. Most obviously, the "dead" flower that sinks beneath the live one has been been given more substantiality of form. The earlier proof seems light, almost faded, by comparison. But a close examination reveals details in the early impression that the darker secondary impression has lost: the woman's eyes are far more defined, and the trees exhibit deeply etched furrows that grant them a rich textural feel. The earlier impression also shows the "dead" flower as truly dead...it seems to have lost its petals, stretching only brittle spines where a flower once bloomed.

I recently finished reading a book on Käthe Kollwitz that was put out by The National Gallery of Art in Washington DC in 1992. The book makes a point that early "rare" impressions of Kollwitz's famous etchings are oftentimes valued more than those from her final limited editions. These early proofs are valued not just for their uniqueness, but for the fact that many art historians and experts find qualities within them that are sometimes lacking from the editions...experimental improvisations on the plate that articulated the artist's subject matter in ways that were lost as she proceeded to craft the final run of prints. I hadn't read this book when I chose to add the topmost image, the "Proof", to my collection, but my reasons for choosing it were pretty much akin to art experts' reactions to early Kollwitz impressions. I had eventually realized that the earlier image held for me something special: seeing the woman's eyes was important, and the flower without even a hint of petals spoke to me more than the blackened flower that still held its form. Even without the drama of additional shading, I liked this one better.

The Ephemeral Beauty goes back to Kanchan Chander's early days, when she was known for her diligence in making prints at New Dehli's Garhi Studios. It was a time that she was active with the Indian Printmakers Guild, supporting the group in its efforts to establish printmaking as a serious art form in a country that had yet to recognize it. The figure of an older woman, kneeling in a shady lane with one bloom and one decayed flower resonates with deep emotion. Like much of Chander's work, the theme is femininity, and our expectations, perceptions, and biases about the same. Throughout her life Kanchan Chander has mounted not only a feminist, but a deeply personal inquest into the construct of "woman".

The Coming Travelling Exhibition

2011-11-17T21:00:00.001-08:00

It is with great pleasure that I can announce that the Waswo X. Waswo Collection of Indian Printmaking will become a travelling exhibition in 2012.

The Bangalore-based art historian and curator Lina Vincent Sunish has been hard at work developing a creatively thematic way to present selected works from the collection in a cohesive and accessible manner.

Premiering at the Visual Arts Gallery of the India Habitat Centre in New Delhi in August, it will then travel to the National Gallery of Modern Art (NGMA), Bangalore, where it will be on view in September. Further venues may soon be announced.

Image above: Death of a Tortoise by Jagadeesh Tammineni (TR)

Mutliplying Importance: Part III

2011-10-08T01:35:00.000-07:00

Part III of the series Multiplying Importance: India Printmaking Then / Indian Printmaking Now, is online. My hearty thanks to the magazine Art Etc, news and views for letting me guest edit this trilogy. Cover image is Garland Tribute, a woodcut by Soghra Khurasani.

Link below:

http://www.artnewsnviews.com/view-article.php?issue=October-2011-vol-4-no-2&issueid=25

Three Part Series on Indian Printmaking: Part II

2011-09-12T04:18:00.000-07:00

Continuing with the trilogy on Indian Printmaking that is being produced by Art Etc..news and views magazine, here is the link to Part II...

http://www.artnewsnviews.com/view-article.php?issue=September-2011-vol-4-no-1&issueid=24

Yes, the cover is a colour wood engraving by Haren Das, and is called The House Top.

Three Part Series on Indian Printmaking

2011-08-25T04:41:00.000-07:00

My apologies for not making many new posts lately. My time has been consumed with various things, not the least of which is being "Guest Editor" for a three-part series on Indian Printmaking that is being published by Art Etc..news and views, a national Indian magazine that is published from Kolkata.

The printed version of this magazine is certainly worth picking up. But for those who have no possibility of procuring one, the online link to Part I is below.

http://www.artnewsnviews.com/view-article.php?issue=August-2011-vol-3-no-12&issueid=23

The three-part series goes by the title Multiplying Importance: Indian Printmaking Then / Indian Printmaking Now, and I am busy working on editing Part II at the current time.

Hoping you enjoy the link and the online read !

B. B. Mukherjee: Curd Seller

2011-07-16T04:24:00.000-07:00

Just a few months back I left New Delhi for Bangkok and arrived in Thailand with black spots dancing before my eyes. I had suffered a torn retina, and within hours was undergoing laser eye surgery at Bangkok Christian Hospital. The surgery was both painless and effective, but it did leave my right eye completely blind for what seemed interminable minutes (a normal aftereffect of a laser eye operation). I sat with one blind eye (I had never known such blindness!) in the surgeons office. He matter-of-factly told me that even though the retina had been fixed the black spots might remain for years. Maybe permanently.

I'll be the first to admit that the fear was overwhelming. Suddenly I had perhaps become an artist and an art lover with severely impaired eyesight. I grasped at straws...such as Beethoven's composing his heavenly Ninth Symphony while completely deaf...but soon one realizes that such stories, though romantic and awe-inspiring, become horrific nightmares when applied to oneself.

Thankfully, the surgeon's prognosis was wrong. My eyesight returned to almost normal after just three weeks.

Which brings us to BB (as he is often affectionately called), or Benode Behari, or Benodebehari, depending on which of the variant spellings one chooses to think "correct" (in Bengali, it is বিনোদ বিহারী মুখার্জি). Benode Behari Mukherjee suffered from severely impaired eyesight his entire life. He was born in 1904, blind in one eye. As he grew he needed to wear thick glasses due to extreme myopia in the other. In spite of this, Binode took up art as his vocation and pursued it with a passion. He was a keen observer of life, light, colour and form, and, as every student of Indian art history knows, went on to become one of India's most legendary artists. It is Benode Behari's small sketches, watercolours, and scrolls that I dearly love, but it his large murals (Life of the Medieval Saints, Birbhum Landscape, and even the lesser Life on Campus) executed while teaching at Rabindranath Tagore's Visva-Bharati University in Santiniketan, that stand as monuments of early Indian modernism.

With advancing age Benode Behari's eyesight grew progressively worse. It was at the age of 53, after a botched eye operation, that the artist succumbed to complete blindness. Yet even within the abyss of sightlessness Binode Behari remained a visionary. Remarkably, he continued to produce. Assisted by his students, he selected coloured papers with which to make abstract collages, and even created one last mural at the Kala Bhavana campus, composed of large ceramic tiles, on the outer wall of the painting studio. Among the many human figures this mural contains, one in particular stands out: a lean and healthy young man balancing two clay pots that dangle from ropes attached to a length of bamboo stretched across his shoulder.

The lithograph above is titled Curd Seller, and was made in 1971. It is an uneditioned work, and exactly how many were produced is in question (I have seen at least one other print of this same lithograph on display at the National Gallery of Modern Art in New Delhi). Binode made this image, as he made many, after the onset of his blindness. As he had become completely unable to see, he scribbled from pure memory...feeling an image the way he used to see it, moving his hand with an instinctual grace that miraculously created flowing line and delicate imagery.

One can imagine "BB" setting his hand upon the litho stone and "feeling" the curves and lines of this young man's figure with a masterly-grasped litho crayon. In ways this litho almost seems a preparation for the similar figure created in tiles in the last mural of 1972. But the curd seller depicted in this print has much more energy. He strides forward with assurance, his head held high. One can sense the sway of his dangling pots and the bounce of his bamboo pole. BB loved the common man. This curd seller is no victim. He is a self-assured and smart young man.

Benode Behari Mukherjee was not only a great artist, he was a triumphant humanistic spirit. Like many today I mourn the disrepair and neglect the masterworks of his Santiniketan murals have fallen into. Their lack of proper preservation and ongoing decay now stand as testimonies not only to a great artist, but also to the myopia of politicians and cultural administrators who are blind to the immeasurable worth of this national treasure.

Jogen Chowdhury: Encountered

2011-06-21T16:17:00.000-07:00

Just like Krishna Reddy and Zarina Hashmi, artist Jogen Chowdhury at one time passed through the doors of Stanley William Hayter's prestigious Atelier 17. The English scientist/printmaker first opened the doors to this workshop and school in Paris, but later moved it to New York when World War II made living in France impossible. Hayter is credited with having a wide influence on the artists of his day. To have spent any length of time at Atelier 17 was to be pulled into an orbit of intense artistic exploration. But unlike Reddy and Hashmi, Chowdhury did not develop a lifelong involvement with prints.

Or did he?

Chowdhury went on to become one of India's best known painters, executing a stunning array of images that focused on the intimacy of the partially clothed and fully nude body. His forte has been the use of ink combined with pastels, a medium with which he explores the soft curves and angularities of contorted bodies. Integral to many of these works is the artist's well-known use of crosshatching. In fact, many would say the crosshatch has become the most recognizable feature of Chowdhury's style. He has certainly produced a lot of work without use of this technique, but his intricately crosshatched paintings are sought after by acquisitive collectors with far more determination.

The crosshatch is actually a draftsman's skill that is frequently used when creating a drypoint or an etching. Creating volume by the use of modulating light and shade, the printmaker often uses crosshatch to create the illusion of middle tonalities. Many times these crosshatchings are kept as minimal as possible, so as not to distract from the overall composition. But it seems that Chowdhury picked up the technique, amplified it, exaggerated it, and used it to great effect in his ink and pastel paintings.

Encountered is a large etching. Compared to the untitled Chowdhury etching previously posted (see July, 2009) the use of crosshatching in Encountered is obviously much more prevalent. An argument can be made that though the crosshatching in the untitled work is less, it is actually more pronounced and serves to give the image meaning. In the untitled etching the man's darkly crosshatched face seems to indicate a reddening blush which gives the image narrative tension. But I would argue that the crosshatching in Encountered is equally as meaningful. Though it barely hints at modeling form, it does lend the figure of the screaming man a corporal fleshiness that makes us feel the very heat of his skin.

The compositional device of the window frame, and the man's distance from it, brings this person directly into our presence. It is as if we have inadvertently walked into a room and caught him by surprise. But what so terrifies him?

The title Encountered might bring to mind the police encounters, both real and fake, which regularly make the headlines in India. In such stories reputed gangsters are gunned down by government authorities in what has become a controversial practice that raises all the issues of extra-judicial killings. But whether or not Chowdhury's "encounter" is a political comment or a more general take on human aggression and fear, is left for us to decide. One can only speculate what sort of scenario is actually playing out before our eyes. Chowdhury's placing of us in such close proximity to the encountered man makes us fear that perhaps we are not only spectators but participants.

Rini Dhumal: In the Garden

2011-05-22T17:53:00.001-07:00

Born in 1948 in Bengal, Rini Dhumal later took her Masters from the Faculty of Fine Arts, MSU, Baroda. She continues to live and work there as Professor and Head of the Painting Department, and is married to another master printmaker on the faculty, P. D. Dhumal.

In her art Rini Dhumal has had an obsession with portraying the Devi (a Sanskrit word for goddess), and she often has explored the strengths and frailties of the feminine presence within the Indian household. Her Indian women are most often matriarchal, lonely, but powerful. On more than one occasion Dhumal's "Devis" take on the form of the avenging and wrathful goddess Durga, a deity held in reverence throughout India but which has particularly strong associations with Bengal.

In the book on Dhumal's art called Rooted Landscapes (edited by Ina Puri and published by Mapin), much is made of the artist's Bengali roots, and the isolation and emotional pain suffered by Indian women who perform the role of the eternally dependable mother. Against this background the six-colour linocut In the Garden takes on a meaning beyond what can be an initial impression of whimsicality.

This is more than just a Cheshire Cat lying smug and self-satisfied. Visually there is reference to the oft-reproduced images of a cat with prawn that have become icons of Bengali Kalighat painting. The fish in this image lies strangely out of water, not in the cat's mouth as in the traditional Kalighat pat, but seemingly dragged to the garden for a later feline lunch. We too, as viewers, seem to have been transported to near the garden floor, and catch a glimpse of a woman lying morose and disconnected among the inhabitants of this micro-world.

Is it the lady of the house, come for a much needed escape into the still-walled tranquility of the family estate? Or is it a self-portrait of the artist? What I love about this print is the way it lures you in with bright colours and childlike imagery, but leaves you with a sense of discomfort and unease.

R. B. Bhaskaran: Untitled

2011-05-11T17:41:00.000-07:00

R. B. Bhaskaran made a name for himself in the south of India long before his eventual move to New Delhi (where he served as Chairman of the Lalit Kala Academy from 2002 through 2008). As a member of the Madras Art Movement during the 1960s, Bhaskaran was among the first to rebel against the idea of "nativism" as was advocated and espoused by K. C. S. Paniker. Similar to the way that the Progressive Artists Group in Bombay advocated an unfettered Indian Modernism in tune with international currents, Bhaskaran and the Madras Art Movement also argued that any "Indian-ness" in their work must arise naturally and instinctively, rather than being a consciously enforced practice of re-exploring, recycling, and reinventing Indian tradition.

Anyone following this blog may have already guessed that I have a fondness for cats. Works that feature the feline creature have already appeared: Tanujaa Rane's Cat (see July, 2010) and Jyoti Bhatt's Mother and Child (see February, 2009). But perhaps no other Indian artist has taken the beguiling mystery of the cat to heart as much as Bhaskaran. What is said to have started as a simple sketch of a stray cat that had somehow wandered into the artist's studio developed into a full-fledged series that became one of Bhaskaran's most recognizable (some would say it is his signature series).

It is of course easy to dismiss images of cats as too easily likable and pandering to a superficial and sickening taste for the "cute". But Bhaskaran's felines are more often than not thin, aloof, and bony...their eyes piercing, even haunted. For Bhaskaran the cat exemplifies enigma and even estrangement rather than cuddly likability.

The artist won India's National Award for Graphic Art in 1982, and perhaps this linocut demonstrates why he was chosen for that honour. Executed in 1989, the print is powerful in both line and composition. The squinting eyes of the face are suggested with simple but precise geometry, while serrated edges texture the elongated body with fur. The size of this print (it measures 47 x 68 cm) not only makes the black cat larger than life, it gives ample evidence of the strong possibilities inherent within the oft slighted medium of linocut.

Bhaskaran's black cat is a perfect example of the enormous strength monochromatic graphic composition can achieve. Its sophisticated use of positive and negative space, creative stylization and skillful line all add up to a work that catches the eye and holds it for long periods of viewing.

Chandramohan: Mask

2011-04-16T20:14:00.000-07:00

The artist's full name is Srilamanthula Chandramohan, though in India it is simply the name Chandramohan that resonates through the art and political communities. Anyone with a bit of memory will recall the controversy that broke out at the Faculty of Fine Arts, MSU, Baroda, during May of 2007. It was a controversy that pitted the idea of "the right to freedom from religious offense" against the fundamental right of "freedom of expression". The ramifications of the controversy that Chandramohan's work sparked are still being felt in India today.

For those outside of India who may not know the full story, I can only give the briefest synopsis. In May of 2007 the Faculty of Fine Arts mounted an annual exam for its postgraduate students that took the form of an exhibition. There has been much debate in the media about whether or not this "examination exhibition" was intended to be open for public viewing, but the fact remains that members of the public did see the show, and that various members of the community, most notably a Methodist minister and various BJP activists, strongly protested that Chandramohan's exhibited works were offensive to both Hinduism and Christianity.

As demands for censorship grew, media coverage fanned a politically explosive fire. The exhibition was closed. India's art community rallied to Chandramohan's side (by this time he had been briefly detained in jail and charged with offending religious sensibilities) and a large group of FFA students, among others, mounted vocal and and also visual protests in his defense. One of the proposed protests was the organization of an exhibition on the FFA campus of photographs taken of traditional Hindu erotic sculpture. Most of these photographs faithfully captured the forthright erotic sculptures that adorn the Hindu temple of Khajuraho, an Indian archeological treasure and World Heritage Site. In spite of the exhibition's use of traditional Hindu erotic representation, the Dean of the Faculty of Fine Arts, Shivaji Panikkar, was asked by the MSU Chancellor (who was under political pressure) to prohibit the opening of the protest exhibition. Dean Panikkar quite courageously refused, and as a result he remains suspended from his job and indefinitely barred from the FFA campus.

The closure of the annual examination exhibition, the confiscation of Chandramohan's works, the censorship of the attempt at organizing an erotic-themed protest exhibition and the suspension of Dean Shivaji Panikkar remain sore points to many of those involved. Fairly recent talks that I had with students and faculty in Baroda revealed a sense of dismay at the resultant political football that the "Chandramohan show" came to be. I was told that the aftereffects included the loss of some of the FFA's best teachers, a hitherto unheard-of scrutiny of the FFA by both politicians and the media, and a general sense of being boxed within a prison of self-censorship for fear of political reprisals. The loss of Dean Panikkar, a much-loved and respected educator, was mourned by all.

I confess that I have never seen the works that set off this firestorm. Written descriptions of them have always sounded sensationalized, and I am well aware that a verbal or written description of an artwork can make it sound far more scandalous than it might appear in real life. My American background makes it hard for me to comprehend the fact that the Indian Constitution prohibits the offending of religious sensibilities (we have no such clause in the US Constitution) and my strong inclination is always to error on the side of free speech. As Salman Rushdie has said, "What is freedom of expression? Without the freedom to offend, it ceases to exist."

Indeed, if we as individuals...let alone artists...are to live our lives in fear of offending someone, somewhere, there will eventually be less and less that we feel free to say. What particularly perplexes me is the special "freedom from offense" that is granted to "religious feeling". Just what makes religion...by definition a set of beliefs which have a basis in faith rather than reason...above the realm of argument, debate, criticism, or even, according to some, mere alternative interpretations?

Srilamanthula Chandramohan is yet another printmaker who began his career in the south. Taking a Bachelor of Fine Arts in painting at Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University in Hyderabad, he continued his studies by working for a Master of Fine Arts degree in graphics at MSU. That degree has yet to be bestowed due to the aforementioned political controversy. In spite of this, Chandramohan has gone on to win various national awards, including First Prize at the 2009 Bhopal Bienniale.

I saw Mask by Chandramohan at the first solo exhibition of his work to be held since the political explosion in Baroda. Sadly, the Indian government prohibited the artist from attending his own show (it was held in Bangkok due to the still politicized nature of exhibiting his work in India). The artist's passport was refused on the basis that his case had yet to be brought to closure in the Indian courts.

For me, Mask exemplifies the dual concerns that embroiled the artist in this web of controversy: sexuality and religion. The woodcut/etching (it is a mixed-method print) is typical of Chandramohan's work from 2006 through 2008. Like many of the printmaker's images from these years, it depicts a nude man with arms raised aloft...a gesture that can indicate surrender, vulnerability, victimization or, as in the case of Mask, direct reference to crucifixion. But raised arms can also be a gesture of euphoria, and this image makes us wonder if the grimness of this "mask" belies a variant emotion beneath. Indeed, semi-obscure acts of sexual frolic can be deciphered in the background. Our eyes themselves are briefly deceived by the strong patch of green that arcs above this naked man's crotch. We are tricked into imagining it a phallic reference, when in fact it is but the side and arm of another, smaller, male figure diving to the left. The true phallus of Chandramohan's masked man lies below, darker and less visible.

The technical virtuosity alone is enough to make us ponder before Mask for long moments. The imagery of suffering, or mock suffering (depending on how you choose to read it), captures us with questions that need answering. The frolicking sexuality of the piece, jarringly coupled with reference to an archetypal image of both agony and redemption, creates an even deeper enigma.

And I think this is what the moralists and political dogmatists do not get about art. Powerful art so often arises from images with multiple, or even conflicting, interpretations. Artists tend not to see the world in polar extremes of good verses bad and beautiful verses ugly. They are sensitive enough to discover a soft caress in a thorn and a stinging hurt withing the pinks of a rose. Such sensitivities evade the more literal minded, the people who need long lists of "rights" and "wrongs" in order to guide their lives. People who fail to recognize the relevance of dreams or the complex symphonies of human emotions seldom truly appreciate art. If they do not outright dismiss art, they are prone to misinterpret it, or worse, pass hasty judgment upon it.

I am happy to have added Mask to my collection. I can only hope that the students and teachers of the Faculty of Fine Arts, Baroda, will soon find the ability to once again explore creative expression without fear and intimidation.

Soghra Khurasani: Garland Tribute

2011-04-10T00:50:00.000-07:00

Soghra Khurasani, like B. Karuna, hails from the south of India. Khurasani did her undergraduate work at Andhra University, Vishakhapatnam, and continued her education by taking a post graduate degree from M. S. University, Baroda. Her major was painting, but it is in the woodcut print that Soghra seems to have found her forte.

Blood is a recurring theme in the artist's work. The arteries, veins and corpuscles that transmit nutrients and oxygen throughout the body provide a deep fascination for Khurasani. In blood the artist finds not just a biological imperative or an evolutionary continuum. Rather, the mechanisms/plumbing of the circulatory system are transformed into metaphors for human conditions and feelings. Or is it the opposite...that human conditions and feelings are transformed into biological reality?

Such transformations can be observed in the artist's large scale works such as Tribute to Blood and Flow Between Territories (a mammoth woodcut triptych and tetraptych, each measuring 6 x 12 feet). The slightly smaller triptych Brave Heart (which can be seen here: http://worksatone.blogspot.com/2010/12/blog-post.html) continues the artist's equation of circulatory system to human emotion. For Khurasani, the heart becomes representative of human frailty/endurance, and blood a reference to personal space. Seen in the context of Khurasani's wider oeuvre, even smaller creations such as the lithograph Blood Cells evokes ruminations on genealogy, inherited situations, clannishness, and the courageous possibility of personal choice. Blood becomes the "fluid of life"...a personal wellspring derived from inheritance and contained within the fragility of the self.

The artist states: My work Garland Tribute honors the anonymous heroic people who all are wronged and thus become a prey by the follies of human beings. The bold roses may count for the innumerable people who have fallen prey to these situations.

But it is impossible not to notice that this "garland of roses" in fact congeals into another representation of blood...a single red blood cell...the red blood cell being the purveyor of nutrients and oxygen (life) not only to individuals, but to the entire system of humankind. The artist is taking the concepts that lurk behind cliches such as "by their own sweat and blood" and "blood of the land", and reinvigorating them with biological probes into their true, sanguine, meaning.

B. Karuna: First Letter

2011-03-26T19:02:00.000-07:00

B. Karuna is an artist of the south, living, teaching, and working in Hyderabad. I became aware of her work after my visit to Baroda last October. Unfortunately, she was not there for me to meet, but through word of mouth she heard of my print collection a short time after. She took the time to contact me, and the portfolio of woodcuts she sent via email caught my eye.

In our online correspondence I asked Karuna to give a little background information to the work above. What she replied is placed below:

This work was done when I was studying museum studies in Vadodara. In fact I went to Baroda to study printmaking. I was doing printmaking in hostel. The only option of medium was woodcut. I learnt and collected wood panel from my friend Preeti Agrawal. I can say that she was my teacher for wood cut medium of printmaking.

This work is about my friend Tapati Sinha from Tripura. She used to stay in the same hostel. She was very close to me. In fact there was a group of students formed who came to pursue fine arts and just to mere stay back and be in Baroda as artist, who could easily get admission into various other department in fine arts faculty, Baroda. Tapati and I belonged to that group of students.

Tapati was married to Pulak and he was in shipping company. It was like she used to see him only after one year or sometimes two. There was a constant letter writing happening among them. Incidentally, I was undergoing the same phase of life and love but not married. Tapati used to wait for the letter from Pulak. In these modern days of communication Tapati liked getting a letter in his handwriting than any other source of communication.

To my surprise one day I saw four letters underneath her pillow and a dark t-shirt of her husband. She never used to wash that t-shirt as she was telling it give her husband’s presence. One day I saw her reading a letter from Pulak. It is how I started First Letter.

In my work I connect myself to other life and bring out the feelings in me through their portraiture. This may be because I come from an orthodox family of south India. I tried to see her expressions and record the phase which I was undergoing in my life.

Thanks to Preeti and Tapati.

Aside from the narrative content in this work, I found the domestic imagery of the scene compelling in its realism. Everything seen speaks of a modest Indian home: from the decorative grill on the window to the electrical outlet on the wall. A crow perches upon the weathered wooden chair, and what appears to be a plastic bag dangles from what might be a mirror. The accouterments of an artist (brushes, paint tubes, books) can also be seen. One book on the table behind lies open, displaying what are probably snapshots...of Pulak?

B. Karuna constructs a moving fragment from a narrative, adding just the right details to make us understand a certain young woman's reality. Yet the image speaks not only for "Tapati"...it speaks for so many others as well.

Ajit Seal: Untitled

2011-03-17T23:10:00.000-07:00

Female figures, frail birds, and shy, curious tortoises are recurring motifs in the works of Ajit Seal. Known for the velvety softness of his lithographic prints, the respected Santiniketan educator keeps a low profile in India's more commercially orientated art environments, though his works are quietly handled by a number of galleries in India and abroad.

I was fortunate enough to meet Mr. Seal in the graphics department at Santiniketan this past December. There he gave me a tour of the various rooms that constitute the printmaking workshops, taking special care to explain the lithographic processes for which Santiniketan in famous for teaching. Ajit Seal himself was once a student of the revered printmaker Somnath Hore, and he speaks of his past mentor with a fondness reserved for sad-sweet memories.

Anyone who has followed this blog will realize I have a marked preference for woodcuts, drypoints and etchings. For some reason lithographs have never quite held the same appeal to me, and I think one reason for this is the "flatness" or lack of texture that seems to accompany the process. To my mind the lithographic stone seldom conveys the same warmth that a carved wood block or even an etched plate is capable of conveying. Yet, I find myself being drawn to the surface of Seal's lithographs in a way that few other works in the medium can achieve. Ajit Seal's lithographs are silky and soft, with an inviting warmth that I cannot explain.

The bare hint of interior architecture in the print above is enough to suggest this young woman has emerged from a childhood tale of castles and sorcery. The confusion of wings just behind her allows us to speculate that she herself is a kind of bird-woman, a fusion of the human and the magical. Is she rescuing the three birds she reaches out too? Or finding in them kindred spirits?

Light and shade is used in this lithograph to masterfully evoke mood and enigma. The artist offers us a scene from a fairy tale, and allows us to construct the narrative.

To view a short interview with Ajit Seal, please visit the link below:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MpS_Gyxhl4s

*

Neeraj Singh: Metamorphosis and Metamorphosis II

2011-03-12T06:38:00.000-08:00

The thing I enjoyed most on my visit to Santiniketan this past December was the chance to tour its famed graphics department. Young artists Shaik Azghar Ali and Koustav Nag were kind enough to show me in, even though the art campus of Kala Bhavan was officially closed during the time of the Poush Mela (the annual music and craft fair that happened to coincide with my visit). Senior artist and educator Ajit Seal later joined us in the workshops of the graphics department and I felt fortunate that he took the time to share his wide knowledge of the school and its history with me.

From previous experience during my trip to the Faculty of Fine Arts in Baroda, I knew a collector enters territory fraught with ethical perils when venturing into the realms of academia. Word soon gets about that a "buyer" is in town, and students begin to queue up with hopes and expectations of both praise and sales. As much as visiting an art school can be a delight, and viewing the work of young printmakers can prove exciting, the experience can also prove an uncomfortable one. It's hard to know what to say to young people whose portfolios are obviously less than mature, or whose work seems lacking in direction or talent. A person finds his or herself smiling and nodding, offering mumbled non-committal comments such as "interesting" and silently wishing there might be a way to escape the polite viewing of more such work.

The most serious peril of all is the intrusion the collector makes between student and teacher. A particular favorite of the faculty's may seem unexciting and derivative to the collector, and conversely, a shy and overlooked student may catch the collector's eye as having a unique and genuine spark. Purchasing work during these encounters (or shortly after) can be interpreted as validation for some and insult to others. Teachers may feel their personal judgments have been snubbed, students may become disappointed and discouraged, while others may feel strangely embarrassed at having their work become the object of patronage. It is for these reasons that many art schools officially prohibit visits from dealers and collectors, though in others the practice is common.

What must always be remembered is that the sale of an artwork, and the judgments of collectors, critics, dealers, and curators are never infallible or absolute.

With this in mind I approach blogging the work of Neeraj Singh with trepidation. As a post-graduate student the young artist is said to be an extremely hard worker, spending long hours in the printmaking workshops during his free time. Neeraj hails from north of Ganganagar, on the border between Rajasthan and the Punjab. His passion is etching, which is actually an odd choice for a student working at Santiniketan, considering that its graphic department is most famed for instruction in lithography. Yet, to me, much of his etching work reflects a sophistication of concept and technical skill that is arresting in its promise and strength.

The etching above, printed with two conjoined plates (a seam is barely visible in the center) immediately brings to mind myths of transformation. Titled Metamorphosis, it recalls the tales of Greek and Roman myth penned by the poet Ovid in a book by the same name. Indeed, one can interpret the upright, bow-holding figure, as an aging and sag-breasted Diana (goddess of both the hunt and virginity/chastity). In Neeraj's depiction this oddly bald figure seems on the verge of emerging from a lustful and vulgarly long-tongued animal. A metamorphosis is taking place, though we are left wondering if the virgin hunter is emerging from, or descending into, the animalistic spirit that keeps four legs stubbornly upon the ground.

Metamorphosis II continues with the theme of human-animal linkage, suggesting once again that our proud notions of advancement, wisdom, and rationality are more held in the grip of animal instincts and evolutionary biology than we care to admit.

In an interview with the artist on the campus of Santiniketan, Neeraj Singh explained his preoccupation with the interplay between the conscious and the subconscious mind. He compares the mind to a fish, "You can never catch a fish, because it slips right out of your hands". This metaphor of the fish is evident if you look closely at the top etching Metamorphosis, in which a fish motif can be found in the background. Yet through his art Neeraj Singh seems not to be trying to catch the fish of the mind, but rather delighting in the mysteries of its wriggling incomprehensibleness.

To see a short video of my interview with the artist, please follow the link below:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FuL7Jwu_iqM

*

Koustav Nag: two untitled etchings

2011-02-19T16:51:00.000-08:00

Koustav Nag tells me that these two prints in my collection were made during a time when he was heavily under the influence of the rural culture and surroundings of Santiniketan in West Bengal. Coming from the congested urban milieu of Kolkata, Nag, like may other artists before him, discovered a peaceful and idyllic world in the academic world of the Tagore-founded university and its village surroundings.

"Dreamlike" seems to be the appropriate word to use when describing these prints, a term differentiated from "surreal" perhaps only by a manner of degree. In spite of distorted perspective, a winged apparition, and the unreality of naked people apparently in public view, these images never quite cross the line into the more bizarre imaginings that we associate with branded Surrealism. With night skies and elongated cats on rooftops they are more akin to the softer visions of Chagall, and like Chagall the dream unfolds in the environment of conjured villages mingled with hints of folklore. There is a whisper of Khakhar-like narrative in these prints, but it is left open for us to construct the storyline.

For me the acquisition of these two prints...both stunningly beautiful as sheer physical objects and examples of talented printmaking...posed a bit of a dilemma. As much as I was drawn to them, I was also aware that Koustav had already moved away from printmaking and was now applying his energies to watercolours. His art was becoming more conceptual and had begun to engage with the world in a multiplicity of media.

In looking at graphics by young printmakers I find myself questioning their commitment to the medium. If they seem to drop their interest in the printed image as soon as they have left the university (a fact that often happens for the simple reason that they no longer have easy access to tools and machines), I can become loath to take their print works seriously...even if they are beautifully made or thematically interesting.

But it is a hard call. One of the first prints I ever collected was a wonderful etching and aquatint by the British artist Henry Moore. Moore was of course a passionately devoted sculptor, and even though his printmaking output was large and masterful, it is easily understandable that printmaking was not the medium in which he made his greatest contributions. This does not negate however the fact that he created masterful prints, nor that some of the imagery in his printed works is as compelling as his sculpture (indeed, the images in Moore's prints are often two-dimensional meditations upon his three-dimensional ideas).

With a young artist like Koustav Nag I see a talented and inquiring mind that will no doubt explore a variety of media in the course of his career. Of course there is a hope in me that he will one day return to printmaking and its rich possibilities. He has already demonstrated an amazing capacity to express himself with the medium. But as all young artists must do, Nag will explore, experiment, and ever progress down an aesthetic path of his own choice. Perhaps one day we will look at these early etchings and realize that they were harbingers of things to come.

Ramendranath Chakravorty: Bathing in the Ganges

2011-02-11T15:56:00.000-08:00

Steps leading down to the flowing waters of the Ganges, women carrying water, men at their ablutions, the stone arches of a pedestrian bridge, shade umbrellas poking up like giant mushrooms, magnificent trees....this drypoint made by Ramendranath Chakravorty in 1933 is wonderfully rich in detail. We see a women with her child, a woman at rest, a sadhu in yogic meditation, a young boy being washed by his mother and people at prayer within the warmly benevolent waters of India's most sacred river.

Drypoint is sometimes thought of as a simple technique, but it can actually be a difficult medium to work with. The need to incise lines directly into a metal plate (creating a "burr") takes both endurance and skill, and many printmakers consider making a good drypoint more challenging than making an etching. Sometimes the processes of engraving and drypoint are combined in the creation of one image, but to my observation this print bares the hallmark of a pure drypoint...scratchy straight and curved lines that seldom veer back upon themselves (a difficult feat to accomplish when carving a metal plate with a drypoint "needle").

It has been fun to look over the prints of Ramendranath Chakravorty over the past few weeks. He is an artist whose accomplishment, merit and historical significance has yet to be fully recognized outside of India. Yet with the ever-increasing global consciousness that binds the artworld, I believe it is only a matter of time before western art-historical communities catch up with a body of work already well-known to Indian scholars.

Ramendranath Chakravorty: A Lane in Benaras

2011-02-05T20:41:00.000-08:00

I don't like to think of myself as a collector of "signatures". For sure one of the pitfalls of collecting is to develop an autograph-hunter's obsession with signature at the expense of seeing quality, substance and/or historical importance in a work. Yet the subconscious allure of the artist's signature becomes bothersome and noticeable when thinking to purchase an unsigned work. Any art dealer or agent at an auction house will tell you that a work becomes less valuable without a signature, and of course a print can become even more suspect. The absence of an edition number also sends warning signals to those looking at art purely as an investment.

This soft aquatint by Ramendranath Chakravorty appears in A Retrospective of his Graphic Prints, the catalogue to an exhibition of the same name curated by Rakesh Sahni and seen in Kolkata in October of 2006. Of course the appearance of A Lane in Benaras in this exhibition and catalogue gives it added validity in spite of the lack of signature, but that is not the reason I added it to the collection.

For me, the image in this aquatint hits home. Though the title tells us its location is "Benaras" (Varanasi) the narrow lane, architecture, and the two women carrying pots could be a scene from present-day Udaipur, in Rajasthan (where I live). The print's soft evocation of early morning shadow, crumbling stone wall and lime-plaster facades speaks of locales to be found over much of north India. It reminds me so much of early morning walks I have taken through similar thin streets just after sunrise, a time when women are returning home with water from the well.

Of course like any other collector I would have preferred a signed and numbered copy of this etching. But sometimes the meaning of an image and the beauty of a print simply as an exquisite object can override the more base desire to "get an autograph".

Ramendranath Chakravorty: Husking Rice

2011-01-23T19:06:00.000-08:00

Printed in 1931, this small woodcut of Chakravorty's turns eighty years old this year...and unfortunately it is showing its age. The patches of faded black are no doubt signs of having been stored in humid conditions, perhaps pressed too close to the glass of a frame, or having at one time stuck to another surface (a frequent problem for art in hot and wet climates that has been improperly stored). But in spite of the imperfection that has come with age, I find this print a welcome addition to the collection. I am trying now to give it a better home.

It is interesting to remember that it was in 1923 that the Mexican artist Fryman visited Santiniketan to demonstrate the multi-colour woodcut process, and only in 1925 that Chakravorty wrote Madame Karpeles in Paris inquiring about methods and materials. Also, it was in 1925 that Nandalal Bose travelled to China and Japan, bringing home examples of prints from the Far Eastern tradition. Set in this time frame, the above woodcut seems very early indeed. In 1931 Chakravorty had just recently been appointed Head Assistant Teacher at the Government School of Arts, Calcutta, under the principalship of Mukul Dey.

In Husking Rice we see a stylized scene that contrasts the soft curvature of female bodies against the rectangular grid of the background fence. An elegantly scrolled banana leaf pokes up among the bending leaves, echoing the fluid curves of hair and dress. Yet, even though this image is strong with stylized formal beauty, the hard work of the toil is evident.

Ramendranath Chakravorty: Taking a Colour Print

2011-01-15T18:38:00.000-08:00

Made in 1937, the crosshatched lines of this small drypoint create a softly exquisite print. Ramendranath Chakravorty observes ongoing work in one medium through the means of another, and in doing so leaves us a compelling fragment of the life and times of printmakers in mid-20th century Bengal.

The youngish man in this image is seen working at the creation of a colour woodblock print. The woodblock print, being a relief method (as opposed to engraving), is most usually printed by a method called "spooning". Indeed, sometimes an actual spoon is used, but more advanced woodblock printmakers use a curved plate known as a "baren" that is larger than a real spoon and specially designed to fit the hand. This is the case in Ramendranath's image above. The printmaker has situated the inked wooden block at a slight incline away from his body, and is using his specially designed "spoon" (baren) to press the image onto a piece of paper.

The background details add further interest: a small table with shelves that seem to hold more tools, and what appears to be a cloth blind on a large window...perfect for letting in a soft diffusion of natural light by which to work. Indeed, this image very much reminds me of Mukul Dey's former studio Kalika that I was recently lucky enough to visit. Dey worked in just such a position as the man in this image, and also situated himself near a large window whose light would be softened with thin sheets of linen. But of course Dey worked mostly upon drypoints and etchings.

Just who the printmaker is in this image is a matter of speculation. Chakravorty is well known for being among the first of Bengali artists who pursued the colour woodblock print techniques that came to India via contact with Japanese artists and their students. In Taking a Colour Print he documents the use of this technique in the Bengal of his time, and in the process also reminds us of the skill in etching and drypoint that was concurrently practiced at Santiniketan and in Calcutta.

Ramendranath Chakravorty: Arjun and Chitrangada

2011-01-08T19:01:00.000-08:00

In a post for March, 2009, I wrote the below introduction to a work by Ramendranath Chakravorty. Over the next few weeks I hope to write more about this artist and the works of his in my collection. But to begin, it seems worthwhile to repeat the first two paragraphs of my previous post:

Ramendranath Chakravorty is one of those artists who have slipped out of modern Indian consciousness, but whose contributions to the development of Indian art are undeniable. Born in 1902, Chakravorty first studied at the Government College of Art and Craft in Calcutta, going on to study under Nandalal Bose at Kala Bhavan at Santiniktan. Later he traveled to London, perfecting his printmaking skills under Sir Muirhead Bone at the Slade School of Art. Returning home, Chakravorty succeeded Mukul Dey as principal at the Government School of Art and Craft, Calcutta.

Chakravorty was one of the first truly international Indian artists. His 27 Sketches of Europe before the War was published by Longhams, Green and Co. in 1944, and in the same year he published Call of the Himalayas which was illustrated with 25 wood engravings and was dedicated to his master Nandalal Bose.

In that same post I went on to enthuse over the surprise discovery of a note by Rabindranath Tagore found under the frame. It was one of those delightful surprises a collector sometimes enjoys...though in this case my elation was short lived. On closer examination the note seems little more than a replica of the original. But it demonstrates the pride the artist took in the praise he had received from the founder of Visva Bharati at Santiniketan.

The colour woodcut seen above dates from 1941, just two years before Chakravorty introduced the Graphics Department to the Government School of Art, Calcutta, as its Officiating Principal. This masterful green and black woodcut is in fact an illustration of one of Tagore's plays, Chitrangada (actually a dance-drama). The play seems to be reaching an important climax...Arjun doing his best to possess the heroine (?)...as spectators are seen viewing from the sides.

Chakravorty had first been inspired to pursue colour woodcut when a Mexican painter by the name of Fryman visited Santiniketan in 1923 and proceeded to demonstrate the techniques he had learned in Paris from various Japanese printmakers. In this roundabout way Ramendranath became aware of the intricacies of making colour woodcuts and wood engravings, later writing to Madame Andre Karpeles in Paris for more information about the process and how to procure materials.

A label on the back of the mount indicates that this particular woodcut had been exhibited at an "Industrial Exhibition" sometime shortly after its creation. Sadly, it was mounted to a cheap board at the same time, making its archival conservation that much more difficult.

Mukul Dey: "Getting Ready for the Meals" revisited

2011-01-03T17:27:00.000-08:00

As promised, Satyasri Ukil of the Mukul Dey Archives has sent a short personal story that relates to Getting Ready for the Meals...as well as an image of a similar drypoint and two sketches. The original post for this image was in September, 2010, and Satyasri's memories make for a further interesting read:

The lady whom you see on the print cutting vegetables on a very sharp edged typical Bengali fish-knife, was named Nandarani Das. During late-1940s and 1950s she lived in Bhubandanga, an ancient village adjacent to Santiniketan. Nandarani was working as a cook in Mukul Dey's house, when the artist did many pencil sketches of her. I have attached two such drawings with this note. One depicting Nandarani cutting vegetable on a fish-knife, and the other shows her working on a grinding stone. As far as I know, Mukul Dey made, at least, two different drypoint plates on her. One of these images you already have in your collection, the other being attached here for your reference.

Nandarani came from a family of traditional drummers. In Bengal their caste is called Bayen. Her father and brother used to play dhol, which is traditional rural Indian drum, I am told. Her elder brother also worked as a cart driver of Mukul Dey's personal bullock-cart when Dey was photo-documenting the terracotta temples of Birbhum and Barddhaman during 1945-47 till about 1951.

I met Nandarani during my childhood... at Chitralekha. She was very particular about wearing her well-oiled long hair braided, and then styled into a tight bun always. She also wore armlets on her upper arms. You will note that these features are quite distinctive both in the sketches, as well as in subsequent graphic prints generated out of them. If you compare the print Getting Ready for the Meals with its corresponding sketch, you will not fail to notice that on the print the figure is tilted a little to front as if she is indeed exerting pressure on the vegetable in her hand, so that the sharp blade can cut through it. This little thought on the artist's part makes the print more interesting to me.

Last, but not the least, I am happy to share such details with you, which gives me a chance to remember the real person behind an image after the passage of such a long time...!

Lalu Prasad Shaw: Form Upwards

2010-12-12T00:11:00.000-08:00

The graphic work of Bengali painter Lalu Prasad Shaw has already been talked about in the post made for April 3rd, 2010. While the work discussed in that post was heavily geometric, the etching above, though still quite geometric, is far less rigid and constrained. In fact, one could say it is taking flight.

I added Form Upwards to my collection some time ago...and actually I had been eying it some time before that. Though completely abstract, its strong upward movement is to me reminiscent of an Ascension...a recurring image in the art of Christianity that generally portrays Christ's ascent into heaven (and sometimes also the Virgin Mary or various saints).

While looking at the website of the NGMA (India's National Gallery of Modern Art) I came across a strikingly similar image by Shaw that is in the NGMA collection. At first glance this image seems identical, however closer inspection reveals many differences. It is also a lithograph as opposed to an etching.

Artists throughout history have returned again and again to the same forms or subject matter in an obsessive desire to "get it right", or even just to re-explore favorite territory. So Lalu Prasad's returning to Form Upwards is no surprise. Of course I am biased, but personally I much prefer the etching I hold to the litho held by the NGMA. I love the way the etching hints at a "head" at the neck just above the "wings", and the more graceful detail to be found in both the positive and negative spaces.

Like many of Lalu Prasad Shaw's graphics, I can't help but compare both works to the bold abstractions of American artist Franz Kline. Lalu Prasad Shaw's graphics are unfortunately not as recognized as his drawings and paintings. But, as the secularist "ascension" of Form Upwards proves, the artist's talents in this area are immense.

M. Praveen Goud: three from the series "Electro-Sapiens"

2010-11-20T19:02:00.000-08:00

Note: The three images above are from a set of forty screen prints by the artist M. Praveen Goud (see previous entry for his Machine series in October). These three prints are in my collection. I normally don't reproduce work that is not in my collection, but to better illustrate this writing I have included the installation view of a different work by Praveen below (image from a display at Mahua Art Gallery, Bangalore).

At first glance a viewer might find a disconnect in Maripelly Praveen’s imagery. The artist presents both low and high tech subject matter through media that is historically the oldest forms available to the printmaker’s craft. Both the woodcut/wood engraving and the serigraph (silk screen) were developed hundreds of years ago in China as methods for producing multiples, and both were widely in use in Asia before their introduction to Europe and the West. The original function of these forms of printing was to disseminate religious imagery for the edification/proselytization of the masses. Strangely, Goud has used these extremely ancient techniques to explore today’s world of electronics technology, gadgetry, and the cultural implications of this use.

A good place to begin looking at the artist’s oeuvre might be the lengthy, thirteen part untitled woodcut which spells out the word “ENLIGHTENMENT”. Each letter of the word appears to be white, but in fact is an absence of black. The letters seem trapped within ironically dark light bulbs. Surrounding each bulb a grid-frame of white spots both disturbs the eye and alludes to the mathematics of circuitry and digitalized knowledge. Praveen’s interest in science clearly runs deeper than an attraction to gadgetry and invention. His historical awareness runs back to The Enlightenment, considered by scientists and rational thinkers to be a turning point in humankind’s ability to empirically reason, logically deduce, and separate themselves from the unproven dogmas of superstition and religion. Goud is in fact utilizing the same historical methods of multiplying imagery that were once used to circulate Chinese religious iconographies to explore where the values of “enlightenment” (perhaps in a religious sense) intersect with the values of “The Enlightenment” (the era that ushered in the current scientific age and continues to shape the world today).

Some of M. Praveen Goud’s works, such as the combined woodcut/serigraph titled Creation, hold no such obvious philosophical queries, but none-the-less engage us with thought. In Creation we find a tightly intertwined mass of grey circuitry reminiscent of the intricate folds of the human brain. The circuit-brain of this image is not however “plugged in”, and we are left wondering if it is a best to leave it that way. The viewer is not allowed to stare at these images impassively. We are presented with a tension that demands a judgment or reconciliation, a tension visually intensified with the optical confusion of the dotted borders.

Similarly the artist’s “portraits”, hip and fun as they first appear, actually pose darker questions of contemporary life’s addiction/dependence upon machines and technology. In Goud’s portrait series we encounter modern day characters that are sometimes reproduced from fashion magazines and other forms of pop media. But the artist has transformed these individuals with the addition of plugs, sockets, light bulbs, wiring, conduit, and the ever encircling “digital grid”. As the title of the series Electro-Sapiens suggests, these individuals’ grasp on reality is questioned by their seeming need to consume and be consumed by technologies. It is as if they live in a limbo between the real and the virtual, the self-performed and the mechanical. Playful as these portraits are, they never deviate too far from the artist’s primary concern.

In the large triptych Modernization we are given a metropolis whose central feature is a pair of twin towers impossible to disassociate from New York’s ill-fated World Trade Center. With oversize light bulbs crowning these monumental structures (that seem to need bracing from their architectural surroundings) they might represent the very pillars of technological accomplishment that has its roots in the rationality of The Enlightenment. Yet, in a seeming sequel, Goud gives us Falling Towers, a sculpture of the same two towers cracked and about to topple.

As a young artist M. Praveen Goud is far from realizing a complete development of his ideas. But in what he has accomplished to date we see a mind probing the relation between reason, science, art, and religion. His dark light bulbs that fail to illuminate, his plugged in people with unplugged brains, his towering structures that seem ripe for a fall, all posit questions for our age. Has the human race become addicted to technologies while at the same time it has forgotten the light of reason bequeathed to it by the thinkers of The Enlightenment? Have we entered a new age of technologically driven, but rationality deprived, “Endarkenment” ? The artist admits to being enthralled by the beauty of machines, and has expressed their utilitarian beauty in an early series of woodcuts (again, see the entry in October). He also is a member of the digital age, a benefactor of electronics and gadgetry. Yet he returns to the ancient arts of woodcut and silk screen to disseminate a new mantra. This mantra sounds from a mandala of an encircling and seemingly infinite digital grid. With time, the artist’s answers to the questions he is meditating upon ought to be worth our sincerest efforts to comprehend.

An Interview with Jyoti Bhatt

2010-11-18T18:07:00.000-08:00

An interview I recently did with venerable Indian artist Jyoti Bhatt in Baroda.

The link is below:

http://www.artconcerns.com/interview.php

Preeti Agrawal: Hope

2010-11-16T02:21:00.000-08:00

Hope is a very large etching created with the use of four separate plates that were juxtaposed to create a single composite image. Its mysterious narrative caught my attention immediately (I first viewed the print well over a year ago, and I'm happy to finally have it in my collection). But Hope, (actually titled Hope I, Hope II being a woodcut), might serve as an example of how an artist's ideas are sometimes taken differently than originally intended.

Talking to Preeti we were told that this image illustrates a rather mundane event in her life. The artist talks of a Christian student hoping to make friends with another young student who was Hindu. This Hindu student was known for wearing attire more often associated with Christians, and perhaps the similar taste in clothing provided a hint of possible friendship. Preeti also tells that this image was an uncomplicated record of a real event in the student dormitory, and that the upside-down head in the upper left is yet another student hanging from a balcony above.

OK...simple enough. But without hearing Preeti's version of how this image came into being I had developed a more complex analysis of the artwork's narrative.

Indeed the young woman in the center is a Christian, as told by the cross she wears on her necklace. She stands behind her friend in what seems to be a gesture of comforting. The woman she approaches holds her hands pensively in her lap. This seated woman is a bit of a mystery. She wears no cross, but wears the typical garb of an Indian Christian. Her lap is piled with books, and her eyes express worry or inner sadness.

It's hard for me to interpret this image without referring to my own Christian cultural background. Where Preeti sees "just plants" at the feet of this seated woman, I immediately detect a hint of flaming purgatory. Where Preeti sees "just schoolbooks" I imagine the religious tomes that constitute the foundation of organized religions. And to the left of these central figures is the presence of a demon...a strange little imp riding upon a tortoise and wrapped in nothing less than a serpent. Has the seated woman strayed from what is presumed to be the proper "Christian path"? Is her soul in danger? Is the central protagonist's face half-missing due to an element of dogmatic religiosity that captures a large portion of her personality? Is the bindi-adorned head that seems to drop from the sky perhaps a Hindu eavesdropper listening in on a scene of subtle religious persuasion?

Trying to interpret this image I find myself confronting my own cultural suppositions. The etching could very well be nothing more than a record of a school-time encounter as the artist suggests...a simple "hope" of friendship between two female students. And yet I wonder if it could be more than that? Is the "hope" of the title a fragment of the oft used cliche "the hope of salvation"?

And then I begin to wonder: is it I who am bringing my cultural/religious baggage to this image, or the artist failing to recognize an unconsciously expressed concern?

To me it does not matter. The etching stands on its own ground. In the end it speaks for itself and how we choose to hear its message is our prerogative. I think most good art is powerful simply because it lends such multiple interpretations. Art causes us to question...not only the world around us, but ourselves.

Preeti Agrawal's Ladies Compartment : A Response

2010-11-13T17:49:00.001-08:00

Friend Alka Misra recently posted this response to Preeti Agrawal's etching Ladies Compartment. I reproduce it below with Alka's permission. It is a more feminist take on the image than I had offered, perhaps shaded with the colours of first-hand experience...

For Ladies Only

Tired exhausted dreamless women packed in a mass and labeled ‘Ladies’-this is the first impression one derives from the image.

Products of industrialization - the domain of women’s work extends from the unpaid and unrecognized confines of the domestic threshold, to underpaid and still unrecognized public domain.

Ladies compartment – the label, is a short description of the torrid saga the woman undergoes in the ‘general’ compartment – where ‘general’ means literally, occupied and ‘owned’ by patriarchal men, where she is merely an object –therefore the property of men like the compartment they travel in. In the general compartment she continues to be treated like she is treated by men at home – to thanklessly labor for the man – to stand while he sits in his resentful posturing of ‘equality’, to be silent when he molests and abuses her body as he would any object of little value. The ladies compartment is a poignant symbol of the male mindset of a particular class – where the woman cannot expect dignity and recognition in a male dominated environment- i.e the ‘general’ compartment.

A closer view and it narrates a sordid tale of exploitation – the woman’s domestic threshold has only extended into the public domain – she continues to work for the man, continues to be unrecognized by the patriarchal (‘general’) society – as the tired women reveal in this image. They have woken up early, cooked for their husband and children, cleaned after them, and then left for their work places to further support the husbands earnings – her dreams inseparably attached to her husbands’, her day is already half over at 8 in the morning by the time she leaves for ‘office’ work.

At this juncture, the ladies compartment ironically becomes her only ‘private’ domain for relaxation and reflection, relief from work and a un- inhibited space, where she can claim her body as her own, free from molesting male bodies encroaching her mind.

All in the name of ‘freedom’ she is ‘eligible’ to ‘earn’ only if it is to support her ‘husband’. Without a husband she loses the right to earn a living, to earn to give her-self comforts or to indulge in pleasures for her-which would be considered sinful by men and even a large section of women.

Preeti Agrawal: Ladies Compartment

2010-11-06T20:10:00.000-07:00

Born in Firozabad, Uttar Pradesh, Preeti Agrawal took her B.F.A. from Dr. B. R. Ambadker University in Agra. In 2008 she received the Gold Medal while taking her M.V.A. from the Faculty of Fine Arts in Baroda, where she continues to work and live. Preeti seems to prefer the woodcut, and her work in this medium is more than adept...though perhaps overlooked is her skill with etching.

Exemplifying this skill is Ladies Compartment. Difficult to see in this online webview is that the print utilizes embossing around the window frames, a technique that helps indicate the feel of the rough metal sheet used to make train cars. Inside we see a tight-squeezed assortment of Indian women, much as they appear in real life on the commuter trains of Mumbai. The security bars on the windows evoke thoughts of prison, while the dangling hand-straps seem noose-like.

For those not familiar with this particular practice in Indian society, commuter trains in the larger cities often have rail carriages designated as "Ladies Compartments", ostensibly for the comfort and safety of female passengers. In fact these segregated train cars are a kind of blatant admission to the reality that women are often subjected to verbal harassment and physical assault while travelling in general compartments..."Eve-Teasing" in the trivializing and euphemistic slang of India's media.

Agrawal's image of a diverse group of women (their diversity emphasized by distortions in size) becomes a strange mirror in which men can see themselves. It is perhaps not so much a group of women that we are looking at, but a view to male chauvinism and callousness. The sad irony of the sign proclaiming "For Ladies Only" is not lost. Men simply do not endure such things.

Prabhakar Alok: Untitled

2010-11-01T04:18:00.000-07:00

Prabhakar Alok hails from the Indian state of Bihar, where he took his B.F.A. in Painting from Patna University. Now holding his M.V.A. in Printmaking from M.S.U., Alok continues to make his home and studio in Baroda. Before looking at the above etching it is interesting to note a few points the artist makes in a "Statement of Work" that he provided me with when I bought this etching.

The artist says:

"Human beings need a lucid basis for their lives but are unable to accomplish one, thus human existence is a futile passion. Humankind has fallen into a catastrophe by taking a constricted, technological approach to the globe and by discounting the larger issue of existence."

And also:

"My works show mostly dependency of human beings on machines."

Bearing these quotes in mind, it is interesting how Alok has portrayed himself standing next to an etching press. When I first viewed this work at SPACE in Baroda I was certain the figure in the composition was wearing a lungi. Later, Alok informed me that it was instead a self-portrait in short pants, and that his favorite method of working was shirtless, barefoot, and in shorts.

The artist stands with arms folded next to the very machine he has used to generate this print. He looks at his mechanical accomplice with an air of resolve. Is the artist pondering his own intimate connection to the machine? Is it through this machine that Alok seeks and produces a "lucid basis" for his life? Is his human being/machine partnership a fulfilling one, or a bondage forged of necessity? Does the artist look upon the simplicity of a vintage etching press with feelings not dissimilar to the complexities of love? Love and hate? It is almost as if the artist in this image stands, arms crossed, waiting for answers to come...waiting for his mechanical partner to break its stubborn silence. Is it too much to suggest the pattern of the floor resembles a chess board?

Prabhakar Alok was recently included in GenNext V, Aakriti Art Gallery's annual survey of upcoming talent in India and abroad. In that exhibition the artist displayed works in mixed media that centered upon bicycle-rickshaw men and their contraptions . Once again the artist invites us to a marriage of man and machine...for better or for worse.

M. Praveen Goud: from the series "Machines"

2010-10-24T02:48:00.000-07:00

On a recent trip to Baroda I had the pleasure to meet a variety of artists both young and old. The Faculty of Fine Arts, Baroda, has of course become world renowned for the excellence of its creative pedagogy and hands-on instruction in the visual arts. Seminal to the F.F.A.'s creation was its Department of Graphic Arts, and to this day the department remains a hub of activity on the F.F.A. campus.

But it was not at the F.F.A. that I met the young artist M. Praveen Goud. We met off campus at the studio complex known as "Space". Very quickly I was intrigued by Praveen's work. At the age of 24 he seems to be already developing a signature style in harsh black on white that is bordered with grids of optically mesmerizing dots. Praveen has to his credit an H.R.D. scholarship from New Delhi's Ministry of Culture, a National Academy Award from the Lalit Kala Akademi in New Delhi (2009), and an H.K. Kejriwal Young Artist Award from Mahua Art Gallery, Bangalore (2010). He has also participated in group exhibitions at Gallery BMB in Mumbai and Art Konsult in New Delhi.

Much (but not all) of Praveen's work explores electronics and machinery. He has strangely coupled these explorations with some of of printmaking's oldest methods such as woodcut and serigraphy.

The above three woodcuts are early works (considering the artist's age it is strange to refer to them as such) that the artist made during his student days at the F.F.A. They are from a set of ten woodcuts (0-9) all of which are titled Machine and all of which depict various types of road building apparatus. Whether or not these images symbolize progress in the form of infrastructure, or devastation in the form of environmental loss, is left up for the viewer to decide. They stand as mute but powerful emblems, managing to evoke both the nostalgic and the contemporary simultaneously.

It is always enjoyable for me to view the work of young and developing artists. It is interesting to try to discover where their inspirations stem from and where their inspirations might lead. M. Praveen Goud seems to be one young artist with a keen sense of direction.

A Similarity in Composition

2010-10-20T19:29:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I received the below message courtesy of Satyasri Ukil of the Mukul Dey Archives. As Satyasri points out, there is a certain similarity of composition between the painting in the above photo and the print by R.C. Bagchi that I hold in my collection (Back from the Fair...see posts for February 2009 and March 2010). The print has been reversed in this blog post for easier comparison.

Satyasri says:

Kindly find attached a photograph of artist Radacharan Bagchi
when he was a student of Government Art School, Calcutta in
1928.

Take a good look at the painting Bagchi was working on then.
You are sure to notice similarity of composition with the graphic
impression in your collection... a group of villagers on the move
in foreground, while in the background is depicted a river with
boats. Note the drawing of figures and the boats...these are
almost identical to the original print you have.

Indeed, the similarities are obvious. Artists often return to various images during the course of their careers seeking to rework and perfect them. Or perhaps to just revisit a favorite theme that gives them satisfaction.

My thanks to Satyasri and the Mukul Dey Archives for providing the above photograph of Bagchi at work in his studio for this blog.

Mukul Dey: Getting Ready for the Meals

2010-09-28T06:35:00.000-07:00

On many an occasion during my stay in India I have witnessed just such a scene as depicted in Mukul Dey's colour drypoint titled Getting Ready for the Meals. Though Dey's imagery no doubt stems from rural Bengal, my own experience has been in the kitchens of Goa. How many times have I seen women squatting in just such a manner on an earthen floor in a traditional Goan home...cutting away at vegetables in the very same way?

At first glance I thought the woman in this print was grinding coconuts. Goan coconut grinders look somewhat similar, though the blade is straight and spoonlike for scooping out the coconut's meat. I have observed coconut grinders used in food preparation near the seacoast, where coconut palms are abundant and coconut flavours fish and prawn curries. But Dey has definitely given us a vegetable cutter in this print, and the items being sliced here have the look of potatoes.

The woman sits on a small board shaped perfectly to give her both balance and a degree of comfort. She leans forward, applying pressure to the curved iron blade as she pushes raw vegetables against its sharpness. Her toe just touches the place where the blade connects to the board. There is something both domestic and sensuous in her pose....the folds in her clothes echoing the waves of her hair. Her tight blouse and her lips are red.

No doubt the meal being prepared in Dey's print is a rich Bengali curry. I look at this print and feel a longing for home-cooked Indian food. What is more, this woman's content expression implies the environment of a comforting home...even if she has assumed the traditional role on the kitchen floor while her family waits beyond this print's perimeter.

Satyasri Ukil of the Mukul Dey Archives once promised me an interesting story about this print if I should ever post it to the blog. I hope that story is now coming.

Video: A Small Collection

2010-09-16T06:42:00.000-07:00

A very nice way to get a quick view of some of the work in this collection is to view the video A Small Collection on You Tube.

The link is below.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eqEuVqJKceA

Afterward, come back and read the blog.

Paramjit Singh: Grass, Water

2010-09-10T03:59:00.000-07:00

I find myself more and more comparing things I encounter in daily life with artwork I have come to know through museum and gallery going. Some people fear their real lives are becoming swallowed by cyberspace, whereas I sometimes worry my life has become but a shadow of some larger artworld construct. We all need to pull our heads away from our passions once in a while and reestablish connection with the moment, the immediate substance and corporeality of our existence in present time and space.

That is exactly what I have been doing of late: enjoying the simple things India (and Udaipur in particular) has to offer...things such as a playful chat with folks at the neighborhood chai stand, a barbershop shave, a walk through a monsoon-drenched lane in the old city. Getting out of one's head and touching the earth with both feet may seem easy to some, but for others (like myself) it is unfortunately something we must remind ourselves to do.

This etching by Paramjit Singh has been in my collection for some time. I had not blogged it until now partially because, truthfully, it was not one of my favorites. Perhaps it was too pretty, too lacking in anything I could get a grasp upon with my intellect. Obviously something had moved me to buy it, but when asked to actually speak about it I fell short of words. Paramjit's darker Walk in the Woods (see entry for October 11, 2009) more suited my temperament.

Today, in Udaipur, the lakes are overflowing with the culmination of this year's persistent and old-fashioned monsoon. Rivers that have been dust dry for nearly four years are rushing over their banks and flooding into the streets. In a desert state such as Rajasthan this is cause for celebration. I have been "rounding" with my assistant Ganpat, feeling the wet winds on my face and stopping here and there to observe a field rippling with water between stalks of dark green hay.

And then my mind travels back to my childhood....sitting patiently beside a summer marsh in Wisconsin, letting the heat of the day, the buzz of insects, the sharp calls of birds and the soft caresses of breeze float me to a beauty that only a completely natural environment can provide. I have been back in that environment and state of awareness on the outskirts of Udaipur.

It is precisely these rare and deeply profound moments that are caught in Grass, Water. Paramjit Singh has taken the time to sit patiently and quietly beside a flooded field. He has inscribed each blade of grass and each shimmer of water with loving care. He has hinted at fallen branches just at the shore. He invites us to sit just as patiently, get out of our heads, breathe deep and slow and see what he has seen.

After a rounding of a flooded Udaipur and a ride into the soaked countryside I pulled out this etching and just took the time to look. Yup...it is all there.

A Return to Jyoti Bhatt's "Self Portrait"

2010-08-09T22:46:00.000-07:00

I was happy to wake this morning to two different emails from eminent artist Jyoti Bhatt. The mails contained a few comments and information about the artist's Self Portrait which I had first discussed in the post made on March 6th, 2010. Below are excerpts from what Mr. Bhatt had to say...

"While going through your blog I was happy to see my etching print entitled: Self-Portrait. I was happier to read your notes with it as you have seen in it and correctly interpreted many things that I have had come in my mind while I made it.

"Of course, I did not understand who had made up the story about the posters for the Fillmore. But apart from that every thing else you have read in my print is quite accurate.

"Actually that print was created on the base of one of my photographs shot during 1967. I had enlarged it by transferring and reversing it on a high contrast ‘Lith’ film, when six painters from Baroda - (including: Gulam Sheikh, Jeram Patel and Vinodray Patel) held a show Painters as Photographers at Jehangir Art Gallery, Mumbai during 1969. The images printed on page 139 of the Delhi Art Gallery book Parallels That Meet were also shown in that show. Later, using the same motifs, I had made this etching during the Smithsonian Print Workshop which was held at the American Center, New Delhi (1971) and, then also a larger Screen Print after a year.

"Have you noticed one detail in the etching print? The dog has ‘Tripund’ the tilak or a mark with three lines that the Brahmin followers of Shiva make on their forehead. (I am born in such a Brahmin family). The two raven like birds reminded me of the crows in the ‘death well’ of the Parsi community and around a dead or dying animal on highways and fields. The Hindus consider them as their departed ancestors and they are offered some specially prepared food during the “Shraddh Month” (sometime during September - October).

"I had reused - in a simplified form - the etching print Self Portrait for the book cover of one Gujarati translation of Franz Kafka's Metamorphosis. The translator/writer friend of mine had also agreed with my feelings that this image visually depicted the core idea of that classic book.

"Apart from parrots and peacocks, other birds, namely owls, ravens, pigeons, roosters (also as weathercocks) swans and eagles have often entered my works."

Tanujaa Rane: Cat

2010-07-24T19:30:00.000-07:00

I met Tanujaa Rane a long time back, in the days my friend Rajan Fulari kept a flat and a studio in the Kandivali neighborhood of suburban Bombay. I remember the long ride on one of Mumbai's commuter trains to reach Rajan's flat, and then another ride to Andheri West to meet Tanujaa. Rajan had very much wanted me to meet this artist, and we had enjoyed a brief chai and a chat while viewing some of her work. I was told she was working on a large commission at the time, "for a coffee shop". What I did not know was that this "coffee shop" was actually part of the newly built Grand Hyatt Mumbai, and that Tanujaa's work was to be a huge composite of individual etchings that formed one large and powerful whole. Her work would join an impressive collection the Grand Hyatt was forming of contemporary Indian art, and would rest near works by Riyas Komu, Sudarshan Shetty, Jitish Kallat and Atul Dodiya. The Grand Hyatt's undertaking was to become a major step in creating international awareness for the new Indian art.

Looking back, I doubt that Tanujaa even remembers our meeting, but her name and her work stuck in my head. What I was most impressed by was her efforts to stretch the genre of printmaking to a greater physical scale. Printmakers have traditionally felt constrained by paper sizes and the capabilities of their presses. When hearing the word "etching" one imagines a small, hold-it-in-your-hands kind of work, or at most, a still easily manageable creation on imperial size paper. Tanujaa was pushing beyond this limitation with her large-scale images that could cover an entire wall...soft dream scenes created from a carefully constructed grid of smaller prints.

Like most collectors I am subject to the "I wish" feelings that seem to be coupled to the phrase, "Why didn't I buy something then?" But finally, in January, I added this marvelous Cat etching with a purchase from Chemould Prescott Road. As Tanujaa's multi-part works now exceed my budget, this 20 x 24 inch image seemed a right fit to the collection.

I had one hesitancy in buying this work however, and that revolved around the whole issue of "cute". According to my online dictionary "cute" when used as an adjective is said to have three meanings, which I have pasted below:

1. pretty in a dainty way; pleasingly pretty: a cute child; a small, cute apartment.

affectedly or mincingly pretty, or clever; precious: The child acquired some cute mannerisms.

3. mentally keen; clever; shrewd shrewd.

Cuteness is a quality that I struggle with when it appears in art. It is too easy, too eager to win an immediate smile from the viewer. A domesticated cat is by nature a cute animal, all the more so when young, and few images of kittens steer clear from the pitfalls of cuteness. It would be hard for me to not acknowledge the quality of cuteness in Rane's etching, but should cuteness in and of itself remove an image from being taken seriously by a collector? Much contemporary art, especially it seems in China, has made new and creative exploratory foray's into the land of the cute. In India we can think of Chintan Upadhyay's baby sculptures. Cute? Serious? Or both?

For me this etching transcends immediate impressions of cuteness, and upon repeated viewing it becomes more and more iconic. Rane has used what appears to be three separate plates to depict the head and foreleg, the rear, and the tail. The open split in the middle of Cat accentuates the elastic nature of the animal's leap, just as the negative space that surrounds it emphasizes the air within which the kitten floats. Eventually we look at this piece and read its cuteness according to the third definition of the word: mentally keen, clever, shrewd.

I find the three-piece approach to creating Cat in keeping with Rana's practice of creating large images out of smaller joined parts. Perhaps someday I will be able to afford one of Tanujaa Rane's larger and more spectacular works, but in the meantime this small cat has found its way into my home.

More Thoughts on the Mukherjee Print

2010-07-19T21:03:00.000-07:00

Printmaker Moutushi Banerjee recently emailed the below observations on the B. B. Mukherjee etching discussed in the entry for April 18th. There had been a discussion as to whether or not this print was indeed a drypoint or an etching, to which Satyasri Ukil had also ventured opinions.

Read Moutushi's comments below:

Regarding the Benode Beghari Mukherjee print. Yes I am 100% sure that it is an original drypoint by him. Reasons are -

At the right bottom corner he has signed "Binode/Santiniketan"
At the left bottom corner it is written "M/P", meaning Master Print or Artist's Print.
At the back of the print the Artist gives instructions to a person named Shishir that the image should be reproduced along with the white border on all sides and should be of size not exceeding 6". He also points out that within this white border the signature is there at the bottom.
In case of drypoints the first few editions are the best and usually an artist would prefer a reproduction from them which explains why he chose a Master Print for production.
Often images like these were published in literary magazines at Kolkata...which explains his definition "Line Half-tone. 133 screen". It was important that the fuzzy effect of drypointed image be faithfully transferred.

Hope I could answer your doubts. Its an excellent print and truly captures the essence of Santiniketan from those days

Mukul Dey's Josephine MacLeod Revisited

2010-05-28T01:22:00.000-07:00

Some interesting information (and a bit of speculation) from Satyasri Ukil of the Mukul Dey Archives on this wonderful drypont (the original post for this print was on March 7, 2009). I am so appreciative that Satyasri takes the time to send me these notes! Read below:

This has reference to the drypoint portrait of Josephine MacLeod by Mukul Dey in your collection. While the portrait was done in 1937 at Calcutta, we can see from Dey's Visitors Book that they came to know each other since 1927, when Mukul Dey was in London. This is evident as Miss MacLeod had recorded her visit to the artist on November 15, 1927. Please see the attached image.

Dey had a meticulous habit of maintaining his Visitors Book/s. In his papers we found five such books, from 1927 till 1989, the year he passed away. These records, spanning over a period of sixty-two years provide valuable information on the people with whom our artist came in touch and their signatures and addresses...all arranged in chronological order. As a collector, I am sure, you can appreciate the value of such documents.

In the attached image you will see that Josephine MacLeod was the eighth signatory from the top. Please compare this signature with that on the original drypoint print in your collection. I am sure one will recognise them as identical, with a special uppercase emphasis on "L".

Josephine was instrumental in bringing Okakura Kakuzo [also known as Okakura Tenshin] to India in 1901-02, primarily to meet Swami Vivekananda and invite him to Japan. But as Vivekananda passed away prematurely in July 1902, Okakura came more in contact with the Tagores of Jorasanko, Calcutta. Scholars wrote extensively on Rabindranath Tagore and Okakura's interaction, and its far reaching impact on modern Indian culture and thoughts. They did deep research on the Japanese connection to the growth of neo-Bengal school of art and aesthetics...however, Josephine MacLeod of USA was strangely neglected by many!

Quite like Vivekananda's Irish disciple Margaret Noble, popularly known as "Sister Nivedita", Josephine MacLeod much appreciated East Asian and Indian art, and interacted with Indian and Japanese artists. Nandalal Bose had narrated his recollections on Josephine to his biographer Panchanan Mondal in detail [see Panchanan Mondal, Bharatshilpi Nandalal, vol. I, pp.182-183]. She collected ancient bronzes, recalled Nandalal Bose.

About Josephine's signature in Mukul Dey's Visitors Book, I have a possible explanation. In October 1927, Dey held his first show in London with his artist friend William Staite Murray (1881-1962), a studio potter and printmaker connected to Royal College of Art. The exhibition was on view at Mukul Dey's studio at 12, Relton Mews, Cheval Place, Knightsbridge and was much acclaimed by the press. Thus, possibly, Josephine MacLeod visited Dey to see his pictures and original prints on November 15, 1927.

Chatterjee's Picture Albums

2010-04-20T01:38:00.000-07:00

Here are a few more interesting facts added by Satyasri Ukil of the Mukul Dey Archives. Look closely at the list in the image above, and find the names of Ramendranth Chakravorty and Abanindranath Tagore. Could B.B. Mukherjee also have sent work off to be published by this firm? Read what Satyasri has to say below...

In the 1920s a noted Bengali publisher named Ramananda Chatterjee (of Prabasi and Modern Review fame) brought out a series of most exquisite colour reproduction sets, titled Chatterjee's Picture Albums, mostly out of then prevalent neo-Bengal School paintings. Each of these albums contained about fifteen colour halftone reproductions, tastefully tied up by a piece of ribbon through the two perforations on the left margin.

Most of these albums were printed from Messers U. Ray & Sons, 100 Gurpar Road, Calcutta, who reproduced the images in colour halftone photo-mechanical process. Incidentally, this "U. Ray"...full name Upendrakishore Raychaudhuri...was himself a superb author, illustrator of children's books and a printer as well. Very famous Bengali film-maker Satyajit Ray was his grandson.

The Chatterjee's Picture Albums always displayed the printer's name at the centre of the rear cover.

Now, I have heard from my family elders, who were artists of neo-Bengal School themselves, that often they would send their original pictures to Ramananda Chatterjee to be reproduced in his albums, but hardly ever the originals were returned to the artists concerned! They never complained very seriously though, it seems.

This small, yet intricate information I remembered distinctly, which, actually, led me to infer that the note at the back of B. B. Mukherjee's original print was really an instruction meant for a block-maker. B. B. Mukherjee's original print of Birbhum landscape is very sensitive indeed.

Binode Behari Mukherjee: Birbhum Landscape

2010-04-18T19:42:00.001-07:00

One of the facts of collecting art is that a buyer must be careful and informed. A fear of forgeries and fakes can make some people reluctant to collect, and many a collector's enthusiasm has been dampened by having been duped. Personally, I find the process of separating the original from the suspect, and discovering the true history of a work of art, part of the thrill. The very nature of working with multiples makes the investigation into their authenticity more challenging. Working with knowledgeable art experts helps, as does contact with the artists themselves.

But in a case such as this small print by seminal modernist B.B. Mukherjee, it is impossible to speak with the artist. Mukherjee died in 1980. And when speaking to art experts a collector soon finds they can be of varying opinions.

On the surface this print is just exquisite. Stylistically it has all the marks of a Birbhum landscape from the artist's early days at Santiniketan. Look closely at the rendering of the palm trees, and the overall composition. Even though I was initially a bit hesitant to buy this print (due to the scuffed and somewhat illegible condition of the signature) the beauty of the image won me over.

The story then gets more involved. After the purchase I removed the print from its frame...only to discover something inscribed on the reverse (reproduced above). Most of it is in Bengali, but one line stands out in English: "zinc halftone, 133 screen". Reading this caused immediate concern. The halftone process is used to photo-mechanically reproduce images, using a grid of small dots as is done in newspaper and book printing. Was this "etching" just a cheap reproduction?

The first thing I did was look closely through a magnifier. No dot pattern was visible. The edge of the image also had the small depressed ridge created while sending a plate through an etching press. Though these findings helped relieve some of my worry, they did not explain the writing on the back of the print.

When I contacted the gallery, they too were unable to explain the "zinc halftone - 133 screen" notation. To their credit they offered to reimburse me if I was uncomfortable with what they had sold me. But I had already fallen in love with the image of this palmed landscape. Its mystery seemed not yet solved, and I wasn't eager to return it.

Over the next few weeks I sent the front and back of the image via email to several people informed on Mukherjee's work. They all concluded that the image had every appearance of one of the artist's early Birbhum landscapes. But they, too, were unable to explain the "halftone" notation.

Finally, Satyasri Ukil of the Mukul Dey archives (who often adds comments to this blog) came up with a plausible explanation: the note on the reverse did not refer to the print itself, but rather, was instruction to someone reproducing the image for a newspaper or catalogue. The fact that the note also states a size of six inches (smaller than the actual size of the print) seems to bear this theory out. In Ukil's informal opinion (without being able to see the work in person), the piece is no doubt an actual etching (or, he argues, more likely a drypoint). At some point in its history it had no doubt been sent to a halftone block maker for further reproduction via photo-mechanical means (for a catalogue perhaps?).

This theory makes sense to me, and to date I have kept the print. If anyone has an additional theory, please do not hesitate to comment.

An Interesting Note

2010-04-07T00:04:00.000-07:00

As I removed the etching by Lalu Prasad Shaw (see previous post) from its mount for re-framing, I found an exhibition label loosely taped to the reverse. It reads in part, "Norsk Internasjonal Grafikk Biennale / Norwegian International Print Biennale, Fredrikstad, 1974."

The "production date" is marked as 1973.

Lalu Prasad Shaw: Graphic Four

2010-04-03T00:24:00.000-07:00

Lalu Prasad Shaw's work has always been difficult to peg. He is best known for the stylized portraits he has produced in a nouveau-traditionalist style, having given us memorable images of the "Bengali Babu" and sari-clad Bengali maidens. His tempura on paper paintings seem like a reinvention of Kalighat pats following in the tradition of Jamini Roy.

But there are other sides to Shaw's expansive oeuvre, not the least of which has been the skill with which he has created graphic prints. Indeed, Lalu Prasad Shaw's work in etching and lithography can be considered masterful. With a chameleon's adaptivity, Shaw has produced exquisitely sensitive compositions, miraculously shifting his eye from colour to monochrome, figuration to geometry.

An "old school" artist, Shaw's early training was at the Government College of Art, Calcutta. At the time of Shaw's admittance to the college in 1954, it was still known for its stalwart adherence to the Victorian Academic tradition. The young artist was trained to observe closely and draw with technical skill. Later, Shaw was inspired to pursue printmaking after viewing an exhibition of Czechoslovakian graphics. He became passionate about the mediums of etching and lithography at the studio of The Society of Contemporary Artists.

Powerful dynamics, textures, and compositional balance make Graphic Four a perfect example of the manner in which Shaw approached the graphic print. Though many of his works are less severe in their geometry (and open themselves up to more fluid interpretations of both form and force) Graphic Four is representative of the artist's abstraction at its most classical and analytic.

R. C. Bagchi's "Back from the Fair" Revisited

2010-03-12T06:19:00.001-08:00

Satyasri Ukil from the Mukul Dey Archives once again offers some good observations, this time taking us back to a print by Radhacharan Bagchi that was originally posted in February of 2009...

Waswo,

I would say this is a group of Vaishnava Hindu performing artists ! Not just really people who visited a fair to buy and sell only. Please take note of the various musical instruments they are carrying...Ektara, Khanjani and Khol...all that goes as accompaniment to a vocal recital, popularly known as Kirtan in Bengali. Also note the typical religious water-vessels the two ladies are carrying...these are known as Kamandulu/s in several of Indian vernaculars, in Bengali as well. These water pots are holy, clearly recognised from their spout and handle.

From right, the fourth female's upper torso is draped in a typical printed Vaishnavite scarf known as Namavali...these are impressed with famous Vaishnava chanting: "Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna / Krishna Krishna, Hare Hare / Hare Rama, Hare Rama / Rama Rama, Hare Hare". [Though the image is rather smudgy in this part of the picture].The Khol-player sports a Tulasi or Basil-beaded Kanthi [i. e., a necklace] around his neck, another unmistakable proof of their Vaishnava faith.

On the basis of the above visual evidences and interpretation, it is not unreasonable to think that these were indeed a group of rural Indian performing artists who visited a fair, performed, did their own shopping and now on their way home.

It is interesting to notice a large river and boats in the background. May be a view of that part of Bengal, which is Bangladesh now.

Hope you would find the information interesting...!

Jyoti Bhatt: Self-Portrait

2010-03-06T21:22:00.000-08:00

The self-portrait is in fact a rather new invention in the history of art. In an age where many contemporary artists have made self-portraiture their primary occupation (think Cindy Sherman, N. Pushpamala, Frida Kahlo and Tejal Shah) it is strange to remember that through much of art history the idea that an artist would consider himself/herself worthy enough to render their own likeness was unknown. Perhaps in the above etching Jyoti Bhatt hearkens back to an earlier time, where artists left their mark through coded symbols and secretive insignias. This "self-portrait" contains no recognizable image of the artist.

Created in 1970, the stylization of this work is still influenced by the psychedelia of the late 1960s. I had read once (where? Art India?) that Bhatt did a stint creating posters for the famed Fillmore rock venues. The style of this etching (with added stencil work) would seem to bear this out.

I'm tempted to look at the print through the lens of Freud. If one could briefly paraphrase Freud's theory on the artist it would go something like this: the artist is a neurotic whose neurosis makes it impossible to fit into the society at large. The artist taps this inner neurosis and uses his outsider status to create work expressive of the human condition...something the artist is uniquely capable of since he is both intelligent and an "outsider looking in". Through his acute perception and talents the artist eventually gains the acceptance of the very society from which he has been excluded.

The dog at the bottom of this print, legs tied and helpless, could be a symbolic allusion to the artist. A plant germinates through this helpless animal, and blooms, bringing colour to the world. The birds on each side watch with a mix of curiosity and threat. At the far top we can see the legs of people moving away (society?) and the poisonous presence of a scorpion.

Bhatt reminds us that self-portraiture is about seeking one's own inner meaning, and that the inward manifestations of self can be expressed symbolically as well as realistically.

Moutushi: "She" and "On The Victory Stand"

2010-02-28T23:21:00.000-08:00

Moutushi holds a Masters degree from both M.S.U. Baroda, and The Wimbledon School of Art in London. She is one of India's most energetic young printmakers. Her passion for the craft radiates from both her inquisitive personality and her thoughtfully constructed images. In 2001 she won the Charles Wallace India Trust Award for Visual Arts, and also a Commonwealth Fellowship for Arts and Crafts in the U.K. She has participated in print exhibitions from Kuwait to Versailles.

The artist has said about herself, "I create what I am, what I feel myself to be as part of the cultural inherit of a 'globalized' India. I chalk out my identity from within a vastly confused space that I was born into. The chaotic metropolis of India reflects our inner chaos and re-shuffling of identity. This is what I have inherited, these subtle definitions, moralistic emblems and hopeful optimism that mushrooms among utter chaos. This is what I try to capture through my works."

Feminism, or more properly, femininity, is often central to the artist's concerns. While studying in London, Moutushi volunteered to help catalogue Indian photographs in the collection of the British Library. Using materials she came across in this collection, she inserted her own image within scenes culled from vintage photographs, making commentary on everything from women's isolation in purdah to the performing nautch girl. This series, created as screen prints and titled Identity an Illusion, became a solo exhibition of the same name at the Indian High Commission in London.

The above two works are sometimes referred to by the artist as "She I" and "She II", though the proper title for the second work is On the Victory Strand. They obviously pair well, being two different visualizations of women: the seductress and the powerful "earth mother". In She I we catch a glimpse of a naked female form between parted curtains. On the Victory Stand gives us a woman on a raised platform, displaying weight, pride and muscularity. The background figures of deer and fowl bring to mind the cave paintings made by hunter-gatherer societies. Interspersed among the animals we see the same female form bending and stretching, as if preparing for even more strenuous exercise. This is not woman as seductress, but woman as hunter, protector and provider.

But is this "victory stand" perhaps in reality the proverbial pedestal? Does the perception of the strongly aggressive woman actually remove her from the common reality and place her in a new and different kind of purdah?

These images by Moutushi are not as simplistic and didactic as they might at first appear, but rather, they encourage us to think deeply and long.

Surendran Nair: Oracle at Delphi

2010-02-13T21:16:00.000-08:00

Veteran Indian artist Surendran Nair is known for his oils and watercolours that tread the ground between Surrealism and Symbolism. At times his work has the feel of Magritte, and at other times the feel of Francesco Clemente, but in the end the language of his art is pure Nair. The visual vocabulary this artist has developed is entirely his own.

Between 1996 and 1997 Nair embarked on an ambitious series of hand-coloured etchings collectively titled The Labyrinth of Eternal Delight. Symbolism in this series becomes paramount, often jolting us with incongruous juxtapositions while seducing us with dreamlike enigma.

The etching above is from this series, and is dated 1996. As always, Nair enjoys his titles, and Oracle at Delphi leads us to expect prophesy and profundity. But what we get is a simple compass, as if we were being asked to find our own way.

Look closely, this image is deceptive in its simplicity. The shadow beneath the needle on this compass leads us to think the point of the needle is lower than the tail. In fact, this needle seems to be touching its base, stuck in a wrong direction. It points west, not north, and directs us to the setting sun. Are we being misguided? Is it too much to think this image a subtle jab at the inclination of Eastern artists to look to the West for direction?

Like in much of Nair's work, meaning runs deeper than surface, and debate is cleverly encouraged.

Rajesh Deb: Mahajataka Dall Story - l and lll

2010-02-05T09:13:00.000-08:00

Kolkata based artist Rajesh Deb might get pegged in the catch-all group of the "neo-primitivist", but his large scale woodcut prints are more sophisticated than that term implies. Working with large sheets of plywood, Deb cuts intricate stories, complete with wordings, that seem pulled from an oversized children's book.

These two woodcuts are about 36 x 24 inches, but oftentimes Deb's work is even larger...so large in fact that his woodblocks cannot be sent through a normal press. Rather, Deb "spoon-presses" his prints into being, using cardboard or canvas as the supporting substrate. The editions of his work are notoriously small, with only one or two prints of an image being produced. His woodcuts on canvas are nearly always monoprints, a working method that challenges the assumption that printmaking is by nature a practice of multiples.

What is the meaning behind this artist's strange figurations and wordings? On one level they seem to be beat-inspired "prose poems" with illustrations. But which comes first? The wordings or the visual symbolism?

The artist has suggested he draws inspiration form the nonsense verse of various Bengali poets. Perhaps its it is because of (rather than in spite of) his work's cryptic meanings that we find these woodcuts intriguing.

Devraj Dakoji: Untitled

2010-01-24T22:09:00.000-08:00

This print by Devraj Dakoji seems to carry on with the artist's "geological" preoccupations that we have already encountered in the previous post. But here, in an etching created more than a decade later, Dakoji goes beyond the geological, to the mythological.

We seem to be viewing a cauldron of creation, a stirred brew of plasma and substance that swirls a variety of beings around its vortex. Is that Ganesh floating rather helplessly amid the mad energies of cosmological formation? A winged lion or griffin? Certainly we see simpler animals that are almost classifiable.

Dakoji offers a view into mankind's perceptions of the universal coming-into-existence, and mixes a scientific "Big Bang" with fossilized myth.

Devraj Dakoji: Untitled

2010-01-22T04:01:00.000-08:00

At first look this small but exquisite etching by Devraj Dakoji looks like it has been torn from a geologist's notebook. Dakoji went through a period of his career where the minute detailing of rocks and their textured surfaces consumed a lot of his energies. The five rocks in this carefully balanced composition seem to float in space. The lower one casts a shadow that emphasises both its shape and volume.

What is that clean geometrical object that stands (falls?) just left of center? It could be an oddly shaped pylon, but we feel instead that it is a rectangular "doorway", seen from an extreme side view, tumbling toward us. It is almost a pure mathematical form. Somehow we sense both its hollowness and its movement.

Are these carefully illustrated rocks really floating in air, as in the geologist's notebook we first imagined? Or are they actually hurtling through space, perhaps in our direction? Does scientific enquiry hold unspecified dangers? Have we gotten too close to the mouth of the volcano? Is nature shattering our patiently constructed existence?

There are no correct answers. But Dakoji manages to mingle an evocative mood with a naturalist's observation of our world. The lovely soft-tinted "ground" of this print renders it all the more beautiful in real life.

Haren Das: Untitled

2009-12-26T05:43:00.000-08:00

What I love about this small etching is the complete naturalism of the poses. Haren Das reveals a watery landscape from the beaches of West Bengal, or, more likely, Orrisa. The distinctive conical hats are typical to fisherman from this stretch of coastline, and Das catches them preparing traditional small boats for sea as naturally as if this etching were a candid photograph.

Look at their bodies...the slight curve of the back, the jut of the hips visible through loosely wrapped lungis....some men strain to lift a boat while others casually watch with a hand behind the back. Such scenes are still visible along much of India’s coast. On a recent taxi ride between Chennai and Pondicherry I happened to view the same small boats and the same small groupings of fisherman (minus the conical hats).

The speckling technique Das has used in this etching is similar to the technique Anupam Sud had used in Guns and Roses (see blog entry for March 5, 2009). But here the white patches might evoke faint stars receding in early morning light, and the grittiness of a sandy beach.

Ramkinkar Baij: Untitled

2009-12-05T04:10:00.000-08:00

When looking over my personal collection I sometimes notice what seems to be an evident attraction to sculpture. I never buy carved marble, but it seems I have a love of the two dimensional works that sculptors sometimes create. One of the first important prints I ever bought was an etching and aquatint by British sculptor Henry Moore. Drawings by Keralan master NN Rimzon have made a place in my home...an artist whose drawings actually attract me more than his acclaimed three-dimensionals. Perhaps it is a sculptor's appreciation for volume and space that translates into strongly composed works on paper.

Raminkar Baij (also written Vaij) was one of a trio that included Nandalal Bose and Binode Bihari Mukherjee...three young artists who proved to be seminal figures at Rabindranath Tagore's Santiniketan. Today Baij is most often remembered for his sculpture, especially the large concrete figures with which he gave form to the valor of the average Indian. His Santhal Family, made in 1938, is widely considered to be the first modernist public sculpture in India.

It is interesting for me to look at photographs of Ramkinkar's concrete sculptures and see them compressed into two dimensions. Many times a squint of the eyes can turn these images into abstract forms very much like the above lithograph. The angular cross-tensions and powerful sense of balance and dynamism that are in Baij's sculptures are also felt in this print.

Ramkinkar has made liberal use of the relative ease with which a lithographic stone can be drawn upon. But what at first seems like a few hasty scribbles actually generates an abstract tale of cosmic forces, germination, and the fragile balance of life and universe. It is interesting to note that this print was made just nine years before Ramkinkar's death.

Viraj Naik: "Aguia", "Ratzana" and "Refresh"

2009-12-01T00:44:00.000-08:00

It so happened that Sanstache Art Gallery in Mumbai had these three etchings displayed together when I purchased them. Of course that does not necessarily indicate that they are meant to be a set, though visually and thematically I find they group well together.

As is often the case with Viraj Naik, animals parts are pieced together to form anthropic caricatures of humans. "Aguia" means eagle in Portuguese (it is "aguila" in Spanish). The choice of language used in the title has to be a direct reference to the former colonizers of Naik's home state of Goa. Aguia stands proudly ridiculous, a mock superhero sporting both lungi and belt. His arms seem to have been detached in exchange for impractical angel wings. These vainglorious wings transform Aguia from inspiring to impotent.

Ratzana strides confidently as the businessman-rat, dapperly dressed and disgusting all at once. Is he walking alongside an ocean? Or does he fancy himself to be walking on water?

Refresh gives us a new take on the after-work lounge lizard, here a thirsty camel with reptilian tail. One can guess this camel has not been too long waiting for his drink.

I confess to not being initially enthused with much of Viraj Naik's art. The figuration of his watercolour and ink paintings I thought all too reminiscent of the scribbles and doodles of fantasy creatures and superheroes that adolescents fill their high school notebooks with. But with time I have begun to grasp the artist's vocabulary, and see how he has developed such "doodling" into a lexicon and grammar of its own. His printmaking, as exemplified here, deserves a good long look.

"Healthy Relation" revisited

2009-11-29T07:06:00.000-08:00

Anupam Sud's Healthy Relation was discussed on this blog quite a while back (see entry under July of 2009). Alka Misra has just posted a take on the piece that I think is interesting enough to revisit the image. Alka's interpretation is below:

"It is hard to tell without looking at the original, but from what I can see in this digital output – They appear to be from a middle class background, stealing intimate moments in secrecy. They know each other and are in the sexual act for the first time with each other. The girl is young, most likely in her mid or late teens. Her breasts are un-botox firm and raised, her skin is firm and her body is padded well with uncaring youthful fat. The stoop of her torso and the placement of her elbows reveals she is touching the man for the first time – she is hesitant, unsure but enjoying the moment or is perhaps amused, as the slight smile on her face reveals. She appears to be aware of the moment and the situation and of herself in the situation. There is a hint of discomfort that shows through in her being naked and hesitation in touching the man sexually. Her eyes are lowered, looking slightly sideways as if attempting to overcome her fear of enacting a socio-cultural unsanctioned act of looking at and/or touching the man’s sex.

"The man is much older – his upper arm is flabby, chest is thick, soft and sagging and hair on the scalp receding. He appears to be coaxing and encouraging the woman to touch him as he waits with his eyes closed, in expectation, while she hesitates. In the social and cultural context, it appears their relationship is outside the social/cultural sanction. It could be that the man is a middle aged neighbor who has coaxed the girl for some intimate moments. It could be he is her tutor and found intimate moments with her. Perhaps he is a family friend or relative – it is not certain who he is to her. But he appears to be in control of the situation and the girls’ actions are involuntary.From the title of the painting, it appears, either the couple is seeking social sanction and the artist has taken on the activist role of sanctioning their sexual act by giving the title ‘healthy relationship’.

"It is confusing for women’s groups to take it up as a social cause because sexual exploration by women and sexual exploitation/violence against women are two sides of the same coin. In the social and cultural context, the artist as activist is sanctioning nudity of the woman, her touching the mans sex and if caught in the act, she acts as a protector of the girl/couple from social ostracizing or even violence against the girl and perhaps even the man through the title.On the other hand, she is aware of the dichotomous social context of sanctioning the act, in which case, the title could also be stating the irony of the situation.The etching is an honest revelation of the enactors and the enactment, successfully achieved by the artist."

Zakkir Hussain: Untitled

2009-11-05T23:22:00.000-08:00

The linocut is often viewed as a poorer relative of the woodcut. It is the linocut that is generally taught at art schools as an inexpensive media with which a beginner can practice. Creating a linocut is very similar to creating a woodcut, but since the linoleum that is used is much more easy to carve (and less costly) the linocut has gained favour with art instructors and their mistake-prone students.

In spite of the linocut's status as a beginner's medium, some artists have used it to great effect. Chittraprosad Bhattacharya comes to mind. The linocut offered Chittraposad a quick and inexpensive tool to produce the propagandistic images with which he sought to rally Bengal's poor. Expressive linocuts were also made by Haren Das, though probably more for reasons of economy than speed.

This early work by Keralan artist Zakkir Hussain is sophisticated enough to be mistaken for a woodcut. It dates from 1996 and has certain similarities with the Shibu Natesan linocut discussed previously (blog entry February 28th, 2009). I am only guessing here, but Hussain and Natesan both pursued studies at the College of Fine Arts in Trivandrum, and the dates of these two linocuts, and certain stylistic elements, suggest perhaps the influence of a shared instructor.

Even though this is very early Hussain, the imagery already hints at the brooding beat poetry of his later work. The woman in the print is submerged to her waist in water. Anyone who has visited the backwaters of Kerala will remember this as a common sight...a woman standing clothed within a flowing river, perhaps washing a piece of cloth, a dish, or parts of her own person. This woman's shadow ripples in the water, as does the shadow of the crow. One might wish to think this bird some sort of more pleasant waterfowl, but its shape and beak speaks plainly of crow.

What is this dark apparition? It seems to imitate the woman's gaze, silently mocking her pensiveness. Is this bird the woman's doppleganger? A sad shadow of her own existence lurking just out of sight?

In the flowing river float blossoms that have wilted and fallen...another symbol of fading vitality and lost youth. Look closely: each floating blossom hints at the claws of the crow/crone. In the far distance a burning red sunset silhouettes aging, breast-bump mountains. Together, the elements that Hussain combines in this print evoke an eerie sense of life's beauty and brevity.

Vijay Bagodi: Adolescence

2009-11-01T00:01:00.000-07:00

When I get a new print I photograph it for this blog (and also for what I hope will someday be a book). Afterwards the print is prepared for storage. Sometimes the new print is simply stored in an archival mount. Other times it is framed for my daily enjoyment.

This woodcut by Vijay Bagodi has sat in my living room the past few weeks and has drawn my eye again and again. I know it is a cliche, but truly I have not yet tired of looking at it. When first seen, I felt the image contained traces of German expressionism...a genre of art that has always appealed to me. That initial perception remains, though living with the print has also made me aware of its Indian nature.

Titled Adolescence, these three characters all exude youth. The young man stands tall and erect, though the placement of his left hand on the back of his head can be construed as a sign of youthful insecurity. The brown-skinned young woman looks at the object of her attraction and sees someone godlike, indicated by the "Krishna Blue" with which Bagodi has coloured the boy. In her left hand she holds a flower...strategically placed in the composition to suggest the flower of virginity. Between the two a young deer symbolizes innocence and tenderness. Its thin neck implies fragility and seems to beg for protection, but its erect curvature perhaps adds phallic symbolism as well.

There is a story here. The woodcut seems an illustration of a segment of a narrative. But most of all it succinctly expresses the giddy wonder of pubescent youth.

Shanti Dave: Untitled

2009-10-23T05:02:00.001-07:00

I sometimes find myself wondering about my attraction to monochrome prints, and question if it is related to my early love for black and white and sepia-toned photography. Looking back over this blog, and my collection, it becomes apparent just how fascinated I am with the myriad subtleties of blacks and browns.

Obviously the woodcut above proves I am not completely incapable of seeing colour! The richly hued woodcuts of Shanti Dave have attracted me since I first saw them. This Baroda-based artist has excelled at abstraction, infusing his work with both singing oranges and yellows, as well as soft greens and pale blues.

"Shanti", as a Hindi word, means "peace". It is a word I find myself using often in India to express the particular tranquillity that I am seeking (or better, enjoying!). The forms and compositions of Dave's abstractions, like the artist's name, hold a beautiful oriental peace. Indecipherable fragments of a personal language float in a nebulous universe, combining to create a dialogue of transcendental interest. Is it too much to claim that the white "comic strip balloon" is a sly reference to this woodcut's rich use of language and script?

Also, note how the artist has dated the print "1977-78". The act of creation has taken time, and the finished artwork begs us to slow down and join in dialogue with its many quiet contemplations.

Bhupen Khakhar: Pataya

2009-10-22T02:34:00.000-07:00

Bhupen Khakhar was never one to shy away from blunt depictions of sexual activity in his art, though his approach to sexual subject matter could hardly be termed "erotic". The Gujarati artist's paintings and prints seem to revel in bringing the hidden world of sex and homosex into view, but seldom do they actually arouse. Khakhar's work was a culturally brave statement...that all kinds of sex are pervasive and natural...not an attempt to seduce the viewer with carnal thoughts.

Pataya, with its erect penises and fondling couples, seems to offer a look into a parallel universe. Unlike present day India's intolerance of even the most timid displays of public affection (opposite sex kissing!), the beaches of Thailand and Thai culture in general are notoriously permissive.

Khakhar gives us a near panoramic view into the sexual frolics of an Asian country not far from India. Was Khakhar inviting comparison? Or simply documenting his own experience?

My own guess is that he was doing some of both, saying, "This is a snapshot from my summer vacation," but clearly intending his Indian viewership to be shocked/enlightened at the same time. This playful courage was Khakhar's forte, and has won him a place in Indian art history.

Somsankar Roy: Untitled

2009-10-18T23:51:00.000-07:00

The above work is also from the "Kala Bhavana Portfolio" discussed in previous posts. What may not be immediately noticeable is the feminine eyes behind the strange, tubular/phallic object. For me this composition generates a disturbingly biological interpretation of sexual desire, an image of sex complete with pubic hair and fluids... even the suggestion of communicable disease.

The way the artist both attracts us with graphic power and repels us with subject matter gives this image its power.