Adi Davierwalla
(1922 - 1975)
Fleur du Mal
A STORY OF FRIENDSHIP AND ADMIRATION AN ARTISTIC EXCHANGE BETWEEN AKBAR PADAMSEE AND ADI DAVIERWALLA In the 1960s, Akbar Padamsee and his fellow artist Adi Davierwalla - both among the first few Indian artists to be awarded fellowships by the Rockefeller Foundation in New York - each expressed a wish to acquire art by the other. They decided to exchange an artwork, which was a hallmark of artists from the Progressive...
A STORY OF FRIENDSHIP AND ADMIRATION AN ARTISTIC EXCHANGE BETWEEN AKBAR PADAMSEE AND ADI DAVIERWALLA In the 1960s, Akbar Padamsee and his fellow artist Adi Davierwalla - both among the first few Indian artists to be awarded fellowships by the Rockefeller Foundation in New York - each expressed a wish to acquire art by the other. They decided to exchange an artwork, which was a hallmark of artists from the Progressive Artists' Group and their contemporaries, as a gesture of support and mutual admiration to encourage artistic expression. Davierwalla selected an enigmatic 1962 oil on canvas painting by Padamsee (lot 32), which depicts the portrait of a woman set against a gestural landscape. When he came across this painting in later years, Padamsee seemed inexplicably drawn to it as it held a special significance for the artist. In exchange for this painting, Padamsee chose a beautiful 14-inch 1961 bronze sculpture by Davierwalla titled Fleur du Mal (lot 33). Both artists cherished these works, which stayed in their respective collections for much of their lives, and represent a special connection of friendship and respect between two great artists. A self-taught sculptor, Adi Davierwalla created sculptures inspired by the works of Jacob Epstein and Henry Moore, as well as Greek mythology and Christian symbolism. Originally a pharmaceutical chemist, with training in engineering and technology, Davierwalla's background helped him innovate and create "edgy, futuristic" works that set him apart from his peers. (jnaf.org, online) He started out with wood as his medium and gradually went on to work with stone, marble, bronze and steel. The present lot, titled Fleur du Mal, is likely inspired by Charles Baudelaire's volume of French poetry Les Fleurs du Mal . Baudelaire's poetic masterpiece - which translates to "The Flowers of Evil" in English - is a complex exploration of the human predicament through various ideals of art, beauty, love, sexuality, decadence and hedonism, followed by an inevitable descent into anguish and suffering when the quest for self-fulfilment remains elusive. For an artist like Davierwalla, the symbolism evident in Baudelaire's poems - that in beauty lies suffering - would have been an alluring concept to represent through the medium of sculpture. The existential crisis that Baudelaire's narrator faces in Les Fleurs du Mal , was one Davierwalla appeared to be familiar with: "To those few who have some understanding of my work, I have revealed the universal loneliness of man, his eternal doubts, man at the cross- roads, the eternal questions "Who am I? Where must I go from here? What is life? What is death?" - to quote, "to be or not to be." This is all I wish to say about myself..." (Artist quoted in E Alkazi, A M Davierwalla, New Delhi: Art Heritage, 1979) Davierwalla's modernist structure, sculpted in stone in 1961, offers a harsh, minimalist interpretation of Baudelaire's creation. The hollowed out "flowers" and the skeletal "stem" further emphasise the contradiction that Les Fleurs du Mal present. Of his work, Jaya Appasamy says, "Two distinct qualities may be said to characterise his work. The first of these is that his sculptures are formed by an assemblage or putting together of units. Thus they are jointed and have a jointed character like the bodies of crustaceans and insects... In his later works Davierwalla adopts a more abstract language and works mainly in metal. These metal constructions though they seem impersonal and technological have an iconic presence. Through their geometry he achieves a certain harmony and equilibrium. Perhaps the orderliness, clean edges and restfulness of these pieces were closest to the artist's temperament. Davierwalla's art thus abandons the old narrative subjects and portraiture in favour of forms which have to be judged as works of art simply on sculptural terms." (Jaya Appasamy, "A.M. Davierwalla," Lalit Kala Contemporary 21 , New Delhi: Lalit Kala Akademi, April 1974, p. 37) When Baudelaire's Les Fleurs du Mal was first published in 1857, it caused a scandal. Considered an outrage aux bonnes moeurs, or "an insult to public decency," six of the poems in the original edition were suppressed - a ban that was not lifted until 1949 - for their depiction of female desire, and Baudelaire and his publisher were prosecuted and eventually fined. The present lot was acquired by Akbar Padamsee from Davierwalla in exchange for his painting (lot 32) during the same decade. It is fitting that Padamsee, who himself faced and won an obscenity trial in 1954, would have been drawn to this very work, which, in its own way, perhaps also stood for the belief in artistic freedom and expression.
Read More
Artist Profile
Other works of this artist in:
this auction
|
entire site
Lot
33
of
90
SUMMER ONLINE AUCTION
24-25 JUNE 2020
Estimate
Rs 12,00,000 - 18,00,000
$16,220 - 24,325
Winning Bid
Rs 33,93,936
$45,864
(Inclusive of Buyer's Premium)
ARTWORK DETAILS
Adi Davierwalla
Fleur du Mal
Signed and dated 'A. M. Davierwalla 7.61' (at the base)
1961
Bronze
Height: 18 in (45.7 cm) Width: 12.25 in (31.1 cm) Depth: 10 in (25.4 cm)
PROVENANCE Collection of Akbar Padamsee, acquired in an artistic exchange, circa 1960s Property from the Collection of Bhanumati and the late Akbar Padamsee
EXHIBITEDDavierwalla: A Retrospective Exhibition , presented by Art Heritage at Mumbai: Jehangir Art Gallery, February 1979 PUBLISHED E Alkazi, A M Davierwalla , New Delhi: Art Heritage, 1979, pl. 34 (illustrated)
Category: Sculpture
Style: Abstract