ArtHitParade
ArtHitParade on Twitter
  • Home
    • Contact
  • Next Auctions
    • Calendar
  • Top 10
    • Origin
    • From 600 BCE to CE
    • Years 1 to 1000
    • Years 1000 to 1300
    • 14th Century
    • 15th Century >
      • Years 1400-1429
      • Years 1430-1459
      • Years 1460-1479
      • Years 1480-1499
    • 16th Century >
      • Years 1500-1519
      • Decade 1520-1529
      • Decade 1530-1539
      • Years 1540-1569
      • Years 1570-1599
    • 17th Century >
      • Decade 1600-1609
      • Decade 1610-1619
      • Decade 1620-1629
      • Decade 1630-1639
      • Decade 1640-1649
      • Decade 1650-1659
      • Years 1660-1679
      • Years 1680-1699
    • 18th Century >
      • Years 1700-1719
      • Decade 1720-1729
      • Decade 1730-1739
      • Decade 1740-1749
      • Decade 1750-1759
      • Decade 1760-1769
      • Decade 1770-1779 >
        • 1776
      • Decade 1780-1789
      • Decade 1790-1799
    • 19th Century >
      • Decade 1800-1809
      • Decade 1810-1819
      • Decade 1820-1829
      • Decade 1830-1839
      • Decade 1840-1849
      • Decade 1850-1859
      • Decade 1860-1869
      • Decade 1870-1879
      • Decade 1880-1889 >
        • 1887
        • 1888
        • 1889
      • Decade 1890-1899 >
        • 1890
        • 1892
    • 20th Century >
      • Decade 1900-1909 >
        • 1904
        • 1905
        • 1907
        • 1908
        • 1909
      • Decade 1910-1919 >
        • 1911
        • 1912
        • 1913
        • 1914
        • 1915
        • 1916
        • 1917
        • 1918
        • 1919
      • Decade 1920-1929 >
        • 1920
        • 1923
        • 1925
        • 1926
        • 1927
        • 1928
        • 1929
      • Decade 1930-1939 >
        • 1930
        • 1931
        • 1932
        • 1933
        • 1934
        • 1935
        • 1936
        • 1937
        • 1938
        • 1939
      • Decade 1940-1949 >
        • 1941
        • 1942
        • 1945
        • 1947
        • 1948
        • 1949
      • Decade 1950-1959 >
        • 1950
        • 1951
        • 1952
        • 1953
        • 1954
        • 1955
        • 1956
        • 1957
        • 1958
        • 1959
      • Decade 1960-1969 >
        • 1960
        • 1961
        • 1962
        • 1963
        • 1964
        • 1965
        • 1966
        • 1967
        • 1968
        • 1969
      • Decade 1970-1979 >
        • 1970
        • 1971
        • 1972
        • 1975
        • 1977
        • 1979
      • Decade 1980-1989 >
        • 1980
        • 1981
        • 1982
        • 1983
        • 1985
        • 1986
        • 1987
        • 1988
      • Decade 1990-1999 >
        • 1993
        • 1994
        • 1996
        • 1997
        • 1998
    • Decade 2000-2009 >
      • 2000
      • 2001
      • 2006
      • 2007
    • From 2010 to Now >
      • Current Art
  • Roman Empire
  • Renaissance
  • Painting
    • Ancient Painting >
      • Oil on Copper
    • 18th Century Painting
  • Ancient Drawing
  • Art on Paper
  • Sculpture
    • Bust
    • Ancient Sculpture
    • Italian Sculpture
    • French Sculpture
  • Women Artists
    • Ancient Art by Women
    • Art by Women ca 1960
    • Current Art by Women
  • Furniture
    • Chairs and Seats
    • Colonial Furniture
    • Ancient French Furniture
    • 18th Century Furniture
    • 20th Century Furniture >
      • Art Deco
  • Prints
    • Ancient Prints
    • Modern Prints
  • Photo
    • Old Photos >
      • Travel Photos
      • Early French Photo
    • Photos 1900-1940 >
      • Photos in the 1920s
    • Photos 1970s 1980s
    • Gursky
    • Photos by Women
  • The Man
  • The Woman
  • Children
  • Man and Woman
  • Groups
  • Self Portrait
    • Self Portrait 2nd page
  • Nude
  • Abstract Art
    • Abstract Art - 2nd page
  • Landscape
    • Midi
    • Alps
    • Mountains in China
  • Cities
    • Venice
    • Paris
    • Los Angeles
  • Flowers
    • Bouquet
  • Animals
    • Bird
    • Cats
    • Horse
  • Dragon
  • Tabletop
  • Early Still Life
  • Music and Dance in Art
    • Music in Old Painting
  • Sport in Art
  • Orientalism
    • Orientalism 1830-1900
  • France
    • Louis XIV to XVI
    • Revolution and Empire
    • Louis XVIII to 2nd Empire
    • Ancient French Painting
    • Cézanne
    • Monet >
      • Monet before 1878
      • From Vétheuil to Giverny
      • Pond by Monet
    • Gauguin
    • Lautrec
    • Matisse
    • Post War French Art >
      • Klein
  • Italy
    • Italian Painting 1280-1700
    • Canaletto
    • Modigliani
    • Modern Italian Art
    • Italy 2nd page
  • Switzerland before 1940
  • Giacometti
    • Giacometti 1947-53
  • Bacon
    • Bacon before 1963
    • Bacon 1963-70
    • Later Bacons
  • UK - 2nd page
    • Ancient England
    • George I to III
    • George IV to Victoria
    • British Royals
    • Turner
    • Freud
    • Hockney
    • Doig
  • Germany
    • Ancient Germany
    • Richter >
      • Richter before 1986
    • Germany - 2nd page
  • Rembrandt
  • Van Gogh
  • De Kooning
  • Holland 2nd page
  • Old Flanders and Belgium
    • Flemish Art >
      • Rubens
    • Magritte
    • Tintin
    • Belgium 2nd page
  • Picasso
    • Picasso before 1907
    • Picasso 1907-1931
    • Picasso in the 1930s
    • Picasso 1940-1960
    • Picasso from 1961
    • Prints by Picasso
  • Spain - 2nd page
    • Ancient Spain
    • Miro
    • Spain 3rd page
  • Klimt
  • Austria 2nd page
  • USA
    • US Independence
    • Development of USA
    • US Civil War
    • Far West
    • US Painting before 1940
    • Rockwell
    • Rothko >
      • Early Rothko
      • Rothko 1957-70
    • Pollock
    • Lichtenstein >
      • Lichtenstein after 1965
    • Warhol >
      • USA by Warhol
      • Celebrities by Warhol
      • Later Warhols
    • Twombly
    • Koons
    • Basquiat
    • USA 2nd page
  • Canada
  • Central and South Americas
  • China
    • Archaic China >
      • Ritual Bronzes
    • Northern Song
    • Southern Song and Yuan
    • Early Ming
    • Later Ming
    • Early Qing
    • Qianlong
    • Modern China >
      • Sanyu
      • Zao Wou-Ki
    • New Chinese Painting
    • Chinese Porcelain >
      • Song to Yuan Porcelain
      • Ming Porcelain
      • Qing Porcelain
    • Chinese Art
    • Chinese Calligraphy
    • Jade
  • India
    • Tibet and Nepal
    • Modern India >
      • Gaitonde
  • Persia
  • Japan
  • Russia
    • Russia 1700-1900
    • Kandinsky
  • Eastern Europe
    • Chagall
  • Northern Europe
    • Munch
  • Egypt
  • Tropical Africa
    • Congo
    • Gabon
    • Mask
  • Tribal Oceania
  • Australia
    • Colonial Australia
  • Islam
  • Buddhism
    • Early Buddhist Sculpture
  • Judaica
  • Christianity
    • Madonna and Child
  • Cars
    • Birth of Automobile
    • Cars of the 1910s
    • Cars of the 1920s
    • Cars of the 1930s >
      • Cars 1930-33
      • Cars 1934-36
      • Cars 1937-39
    • Post War Cars >
      • Cars 1940-50
      • Cars 1951-53
      • Cars 1954-55
      • Cars 1956-57
      • Cars 1958-59
    • Cars of the 1960s >
      • Cars 1960-61
      • Cars 1962-64
      • Cars 1965-67
    • Cars 1970s 1980s
    • Supercars
    • Hypercars
    • Ferrari >
      • Early Ferrari
      • From LWB to GTO >
        • California Spider
      • Ferrari after 1962
    • Italian Cars
    • Mercedes-Benz
    • Porsche
    • British Cars >
      • Aston Martin
      • Jaguar
      • McLaren
    • Bugatti
    • French Cars
    • Duesenberg
    • Ford and Shelby
    • Cars - 2nd page
  • Motorcycles
  • Jewels
    • White Diamond
    • Pink Diamond
    • Blue Diamond
    • African Diamonds
    • Jewels - 2nd page
    • Cartier
  • Silverware
  • Coin
    • Gold Coins
    • Silver Coins
    • Antique Coins
    • Coins 1000-1775
    • Coins 1776-92
    • Coins 1793-99
    • Coins 1800-49
    • Coins 1850-69
    • Coins 1870-99
    • 20th century Coins
    • British Coins
    • Dollars and Eagles
    • Asian Coins
  • Paper Currency
  • Medal and Decoration
    • Nobel Medals
  • Time Pieces
    • Clocks >
      • Old Clocks
    • Mechanical Craft ca 1800 >
      • Jaquet-Droz and Followers
    • Modern Watches
    • New Watches
    • Patek Philippe >
      • Development of Patek Philippe
      • Patek Philippe 1945-1980
    • Rolex
    • Watches 2nd page
    • English Time Pieces
    • French Time Pieces
  • Glass and Crystal
    • Glass before 1900
    • Glass 1900-10
  • European Porcelain
    • Ceramic before 1760
  • Textiles
  • Garment
  • Fashion
  • Books
    • Incunabula
    • Books 1501-1700
    • Fine Books 1700-1850
  • Literature
    • Literature in English
    • Literature in French
  • Poems and Lyrics
  • Autograph
  • Manuscript
  • Religious Texts
  • Political Writing
  • Comic Books
  • Comic Art
  • Travel
  • Space
  • Maps
  • Cars in Movies
  • Movies
  • Music
  • Musical Instrument
    • Violin
    • Guitar
    • Musical Instrument 2nd page
  • Music Hall
    • The Beatles
  • Poster
  • Sport Memorabilia
    • Sport Equipment >
      • Baseball Bat
    • Sport Document
    • Sport Rewards and Medals
    • Sport Images before 1945
    • Sports Card after 1945
    • Baseball >
      • Babe Ruth
      • Mickey Mantle
      • Baseball Uniform
    • Basketball
    • Ice Hockey
    • Sport Memorabilia 2nd page
    • Olympic Games
  • Origins of Sports
  • Historical Arms
    • Blade and Armour
    • Colt 1836-62
    • Later Colts
    • Winchester
    • Firearms - 2nd page
  • Toys and Carousels
    • Doll
  • Games
  • Stamps
    • World Stamps
    • US Stamps
  • Inventions
  • Instrument and Equipment
  • Sciences
    • Ancient Science
    • Sciences 1600-1800
    • Sciences from 1800
    • Astronomy
    • Medicine
    • Natural History
  • Whisky
  • Wine
  • Past Sales

Modern India

See also : India  Gaitonde
Chronology : 1979  1996  2000

1955 The Venus of Hampstead
2015 SOLD for $ 4.1M including premium

In London since 1949, Francis Newton Souza draws and paints grotesque portraits. While Bacon is inspired by Velazquez, Souza sees Titian. An oil on canvas 122 x 104 cm painted in 1955 entitled Titian's grandfather was sold for Rs 2.25 crore including premium by Saffronart on December 6, 2007.

In the same year, the most important work by Souza is titled Birth. This oil on panel 122 x 244 cm is estimated $ 2.2M, for sale byChristie's in New York on September 17, lot 709.

The anti-religious concern of the artist at that time enables to interpret this scene as a pastiche of the Christian Nativity. The atmosphere of the apartment is dark like a barn but the urban landscape of Hampstead where Souza then tried to live is visible through a structure resembling the stained glass windows of a church.

The pregnant woman is nude. Her hemispherical belly is close to the explosion. The bearded man in liturgical garments on the left of the image does not care for her. She is not appealing. He is the image of sin, or perhaps a self-portrait. The focal point of Souza against the Christian religion is the hypocrisy of redemption. The texture of the naked body is a cracked indecipherable graffiti which adds to the abjection of the scene, anticipating Twombly.

Critics see Manet's Olympia as a model for this woman by Souza. I would instead be tempted to recognize the Venus of Urbino, a symbol of fertility and thus indirectly of sin painted by Titian, one of the top Christian artists.

​1972 The Landscape of the Night
2018 SOLD for $ 4.45M including premium

The son of a forest ranger, Syed Haider Raza will keep throughout his life the impression of the promise of dawn, a transition between the terror of the night and the bright colors of the day. The landscapes of his early career are not located, mixing the feelings of his native Madhya Pradesh and of Provence with hills, villages and horizons. The explosion of colors already dominates the shapes.

Raza expresses the mystery of the soil, like Pollock. In the early 1970s he dares to address the dangers of the night. On March 21 in New York, Christie's sells as lot 222 Tapovan, acrylic on canvas 160 x 189 cm painted in 1972.

Tapovan is a Sanskrit word used in yoga, mixing the ideas of meditation and forest. Glowing red areas and bright yellow sparks dot the night scene. A careful inspection suggests the appearance of faces within flames and embers, not without evoking the expressive schematization of his fellow F.N. Souza.

If this interpretation is correct, it is exceptionally rare in Raza's usually dehumanized art and brings Tapovan closer to the primordial questions of the wild tribes and of Gauguin : D'où venons-nous ? Qui sommes-nous ? Où allons-nous ? And also : who are these spirits of the night ?

La Terre, acrylic on canvas 189 x 189 cm painted in the following year, is also an explosion of lights in the night but nearer to full abstraction. It was sold for $ 3.1M including premium by Christie's on March 18, 2014.

Raza will soon find an answer to this anxiety. An admirer of Rothko, he will systematize the inclusion of his abstract forms into a structure which in his case begins as a window. He abandons the night but not the ground and gives in the later phases of his career the main role to the essential form,  the bindu.

​Tapovan had been sold for $ 1.47M including premium by Sotheby's on March 29, 2006.

1974 Abstract Painting by VS Gaitonde
2020  SOLD for INR 32 crores before fees (worth US $ 4.4M) by Pundole's
narrated post sale in 2020

Vasudev S. Gaitonde seeks to express through a pictorial work the relationship between mind and world. He finds inspiration in Zen.

For more than three decades, his format was invariably vertical. The bottom-up perception is like a prayer. The technique also varies little. The successive addition of layers of transparent paint has as a final objective the best possible relationship between pigment and light, with a subtlety that cannot be reproduced by photography.

Gaitonde's works are not monochrome, because they are compartmentalized into zones of slightly different shades. This texture, as well as the outline and density of the slightly biomorphic floating forms, varies over time. For Gaitonde, each opus is unique, separated from the previous one by a long meditation. This false figuration marks the variable part of the corpus of this one-of-a-kind artist.

Around 1974 the image is divided into several adjacent horizontal bands of similar height. To better share meditation, the floating forms are less and less contrasted.

On September 3, 2020 in Mumbai, Pundole's sold at lot 11 for INR 32 crore before fees, worth US $ 4.4M, a 153 x 102 cm oil on canvas painted in 1974, from a lower estimate of INR 15 crore.

Gaitonde
India

1979 The Abstract Zen of VS Gaitonde
2013 SOLD for INR 23.7 crores (worth US $ 3.8M) including premium

VS Gaitonde was a quiet man. Art is a process to communicate to the world the images created in his inner self bathed within the principles of Buddhist Zen.

The oil on canvas is his preferred technique, but the use he makes of it is complex. In the following of abstract expressionism, he creates illusions of shapes and textures by varying the application of layers of paint on the surface of the canvas.

Perfectionist, he does not leave his work until he is absolutely satisfied with the result, which requires a long approach to perfection. His art is rare.

In the 1960s, the subconscious of Gaitonde generates imaginary landscapes too close to abstraction for inviting to an identification. A good example made ​​in 1969 was previously discussed in this column. This painting 152 x 101 cm was sold for $ 960K including premium by Christie's on September 12, 2012.

On December 19 in Mumbai, Christie's sells an oil on canvas 153 x 102 cm, estimated INR 65M. Here is the link to the catalog.

Dated 1979, this painting marks an abandonment of the illusion of landscape in favor of a sort of calligraphy that will become sharper, and therefore less mesmerizing, in his later career. The choice of color is somptuous between gold and brown.

Gaitonde liked to live in seclusion. His art is not sufficiently recognized internationally. However, he expresses the relationship of man and ground as Pollock did, he translates the subtlety of his inner self like Zao Wou-ki, he captures the emotion of the viewer like Rothko and his technique anticipates the squeegee of Richter.

POST SALE COMMENT

This sumptuous abstract painting by Gaitonde is also a key work in the development of his art. It was sold for Rs 23.7 crore including premium, equivalent to U.S. $ 3.8 M.
1979

1982 The Rhythm of Silence
2019 SOLD for INR 26.3 crores (worth US $ 3.7M) including premium

V.S. Gaitonde returned from New York in 1965 after a long stay during which he had met Rothko in his studio. He develops his own way by gradually eliminating all superfluous elements for his expressionist interpretation of nature.

He thus removes the contours of forms, the pseudo-calligraphic and symbolic signs, the illusions of perspective. Oil on canvas becomes his only technique. The artwork becomes monochrome in an immutable vertical format. Yet each opus is different from the previous one, in a search for continuous improvement that rejects chance and feelings.

After a superposition of transparent layers of which the artist has not revealed the detailed process, the roller, the brush and the knife create variations of brilliance in a global geometric balance. Gaitonde seeks, in his own words, the absorption of silences, bringing a visual musicality. He observes a similarity of his approach to Buddhist Zen which considers that the open space must be filled by the mind.

After the patient meditation and the quick execution, the third and final phase is contemplation. If the musicality of silence suits the artist, he keeps the work in his studio for a possible public use. If not, he scraps it. And he starts again with a new canvas.

All these features converge in a 153 x 102 cm oil on canvas painted in 1979, sold for INR 23.7 crores including premium by Christie's on December 19, 2013.

An oil on canvas of the same dimensions painted in 1982 belongs to the same phase of the career of the artist. It was sold by Pundole's on April 9, 2015 for INR 16.5 crores, a figure that probably does not include the premium. It is estimated INR 20 crores worth US $ 2.9M for sale by Saffronart in New Delhi on September 12, lot 12.

1989 The Dark Blue Goddess
2018 SOLD for US $ 4M (worth INR 26.4 crores) including premium

Artist in residence at Santiniketan, Tyeb Mehta found his sources. His diaphanous characters become reincarnations of Hindu goddesses whose morphology and powers are unlimited.

The young Durga inspires him. Painted in 1984, a two-headed figure with four arms sitting peacefully next to a cut bull's head was sold for INR 17.8 crores including premium by AstaGuru on August 23, 2017.

Back in Mumbai he began a new phase of his career, gradually integrating in bright colors the extreme violence deployed to overcome evil by the two emanations of Parvati, Kali and Durga.

The image of Kali with a blue skin is recognizable by any connoisseur of Hindu mythology. An oil on canvas 170 x 137 cm painted in 1989 was sold for INR 3.95 crores worth US $ 990K including premium by Saffronart on June 7, 2007, a very high price for this artist at that time. It is estimated US $ 3M worth INR 19.8 crores on June 14 by the same auction house online from Mumbai, lot 33.

The goddess with a Prussian blue skin is standing in an attitude of extreme physical strength, legs apart ready for fight. Another body appears as a defeated victim while a pure white hand reaches her fertile belly, symbol of her role of rebirth after destruction. Kali was so strong that she once trampled the good god Shiva. The scarlet red hanging tongue expresses her shame after this awkwardness.

Tyeb Mehta painted very few Kali figures in full length. He will prefer the epic brawl of Durga with the demon Mahishasura.

1994 The Modern Mythology of Tyeb Mehta
2013 SOLD for INR 19.8 crores (worth US $ 3.2M) including premium

In 2009, less than three months after the death of the artist, Christie's sold for $ 1.28 million including premium a painting by Mehta on the theme of Mahishasura. This artwork is now listed in the inaugural auction by Christie's in Mumbai on December 19. The estimate, INR 75M, is consistent with the previous result.

I republish below my post from 2009 :

Tyeb Mehta died on July 2, aged 84. In the last twenty years, his main theme was the human figure unbalanced against its surroundings. Gradually, his works have become stronger, with an increased simplification, strident colors and the loss of vertical marks.

I previously discussed here a masterpiece of 2003, Fallen Figure with Bird. This acrylic on canvas, 182 x 149 cm, was sold for $ 1.5 million including premium by Sotheby's on 18 September 2008.

The Indian mythology provides examples of the struggle of man and beast, and the episode of the warrior goddess Durga killing the buffalo demon Mahisha has repeatedly inspired Mehta. The struggle of these two mythical beings is a suitable theme for representing an imbalance of tangled bodies.

On September 16, 2009 in New York, Christie's sells one of these "Mahishasura". Dated 1994, 150 x 120 cm, this acrylic on canvas pioneers the use of color to exacerbate violence. Both characters, human and monster, have the mouth wide open in their heroic effort. The estimate, $ 600 K, is reasonable.

This work has already gone through Christie's. It was sold $ 107 K in 2002, including premium. Contemporary art is so: an unknown artist becomes a star in a few years. Mehta was fortunate that the success came to him during his lifetime.

Additional information: a Mahishasura of same size painted in 1996 was sold for £ 1.38 million including premium at Christie's on 11 June 2012.

POST SALE COMMENT

Tyeb Mehta was a master of modern Indian art and this painting is remarkable for its strength. It was sold for Rs 19.8 crore including premium, corresponding to U.S. $ 3.2 million, far beyond the result obtained by the same auction house in New York in 2009.

​1995 The Intangible Glimmer of VS Gaitonde
2015 SOLD for INR 29.3 crores (worth US $ 4.4M) including premium

The artistic career of Vasudeo S. Gaitonde is a meticulous progress towards the light. Originally inspired by Rothko, the artist covers his paintings with a luminous paint often interrupted by darker expressions that may evoke some perspective.

Gaitonde is a Zen artist who favors meditation and works slowly. The rarity of his art, just over five paintings a year, has probably slowed the spread of his reputation.

On December 15 in Mumbai, Christie's sells an oil on canvas 140 x 102 cm, lot 25 estimated Rs 12 crore equivalent to US $ 1.8M. This painting is dated 1995. Gaitonde was 71 years old, and this picture is typical of the magnificent culmination of his research.

The color between ochre and gold has become almost monochrome. It plays with light by the effects of glimmer, reflection and texture. The canvas is scattered with regular horizontal lines and with non semiotic closed figures whose role is to diffuse the viewer's attention into the entire surface. Like for Rothko, the best works by Gaitonde can hardly be understood by the inspection of a photograph.

This late work entirely made of light and texture anticipates by over ten years the quest of the younger monochromists like Tauba Auerbach or Rudolf Stingel.

1996 The Ultimate Embers of V.S. Gaitonde
​2017 SOLD for $ 4.1M including premium

The art of V.S. Gaitonde is a hyperbolic approach to his passion. Like Zao Wou-Ki and Matta he went to use the abstraction to express his feeling of the sublime. The forms play over colors like the music over silence.

The oil on canvas is his unique technique throughout this course of almost half a century. Over time his mastery of texture and light becomes total. The artworks have no title because the psychology of each person is unique. Gaitonde does not try to be understood or to train disciples but those who will imitate him will certainly reach a nirvana.

Yellow is powerful and dazzling. A gold and ochre composition 140 x 102 cm inhabited by geometric shapes without apparent meaning was sold on December 15, 2015 by Christie's for INR 29.3 crores including premium worth US $ 4.4M. Painted in 1995 it is an example of the perfectionist creativity of his later career.

On September 13 in New York, Christie's sells an oil on canvas of the same size painted in 1996 which is perhaps the ultimate masterpiece by Gaitonde, finally releasing his inner incandescence patiently retained by his Zen.

This composition appears as a continuation to the 1995 painting. The vermilion background reveals the inner fire and the geometric forms arise like yellow and orange embers. It is estimated $ 2,8M, lot 414.
1996

​​​​2000 The Fall of the Fat Ox
2018 ​SOLD for INR 20 crores (worth US$ 3.2M) including premium

An untitled canvas 183 x 152 cm painted by Tyeb Mehta in 2000 was sold for $ 2.3M including premium by Christie's on March 18, 2014, lot 230. It had been discussed in this column before the sale.

It is estimated INR 14 crores worth US $ 2.26M by AstaGuru online from Mumbai, lot 41 closing on March 27. Here is the link to the website of the auction house.

This artwork brings together the two preferred themes of the artist, the bull and the fall.

Disgusted in his youth by the death of oxen in the slaughterhouses, Mehta takes the bovine as the symbol of the vanity of the mankind, from the tortured innocence to the most crazy violence for which the beast takes the features of the demon-buffalo Mahishasura in fight with Durga.

More recent in his art the theme of the fall appears in the late 1980s. A bull or bird is tightly entwined with a human being in a hopeless weightlessness.

In the painting coming for sale the bovine is fat and strangely peaceful, upturned body and four legs upwards. It has no eyes, as blind as the cut head placed in front of Durga in other compositions. A leg and the tail are interchanged. Two hands coming out from below are the only human attributes in this almost invisible embrace.

In this wide range of behaviors the fate for butchery becomes dominant at the end of the artist's career. A diptych made in 2005/2007 displays in each 198 x 152 cm element the silhouette of a beef cut in three pieces. It was sold for $ 2.8M including premium by Christie's on March 23, 2011.
2000
Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.