V S Gaitonde
(1924 - 2001)
Untitled
"The central characteristic of Gaitonde's artistic personality, it must be understood, is that
he likes to stand alone…This independent-mindedness was accompanied by a firm belief in his identity as a painter"
(Dnyaneshwar Nadkarni, Gaitonde, Lalit Kala Akademi, New Delhi, 1983, unpaginated). So focused was Gaitonde on the perfection
of his craft that he eventually isolated himself from all people and things he believed were not essential to...
"The central characteristic of Gaitonde's artistic personality, it must be understood, is that
he likes to stand alone…This independent-mindedness was accompanied by a firm belief in his identity as a painter"
(Dnyaneshwar Nadkarni, Gaitonde, Lalit Kala Akademi, New Delhi, 1983, unpaginated). So focused was Gaitonde on the perfection
of his craft that he eventually isolated himself from all people and things he believed were not essential to his creative
process or identity as a painter, and only allowed paintings that he considered faultless to survive beyond the confines of
his studio. His reclusiveness and the slow and meticulous process he adopted to create his desired effects, together with his
untimely death in 2001, have made Gaitonde one of the least prolific of all modern Indian artists.
Arguably the most definitive period of Gaitonde's career, the mid-1960s marked some of his most meaningful artistic
achievements. Working out of a small studio at the Bhulabhai Memorial Institute in Mumbai, it was at this time that Gaitonde
began his experiments with the layering of pigment and manipulation of light and texture to create a series of what he
termed, not abstract, but ‘non-objective" canvases. Influenced by Zen philosophy and the principles of minimalism, the
artist's works from this period pulsate with an innate lyricism as well as a sense of mystery, both resulting from the
"tension between a translucent surface – red, blue or brown – and the motifs which lurk on the same canvas but from some
distance" (Ibid.).
In 1964, the artist traveled to the United States on a Rockefeller Foundation Fellowship and was exposed to post-war art in
America and Europe. Encountering the work of abstract expressionists like Jackson Pollock and Mark Rothko, Gaitonde felt
confident of the new turn his creative process had taken. Now, more than ever, painting for Gaitonde became a perpetual
challenge to sharpen his non-objective idiom, and, as a result, a process of constant personal metamorphosis. It was also the
artist's belief that no painting was limited to one canvas as every piece contained the seed or germination of another.
Gaitonde's creative process, then, may be described as a progression or movement towards ‘purity of expression" through which
dimensions beyond the surface of a canvas are revealed through the interplay of space, color and light.
In the present lot, pared of colour as well as form, Gaitonde displays the masterful control of light that his flawlessly
developed technique allowed him. Building up layers of pigment with a roller and carefully removing any superfluous paint
with a palette knife, the artist is able to alternately conceal and reveal illumination on the surface of the piece.
Transgressed by parallel bands of grey and brown, this canvas is at once somber and revelatory, intimidating and serene. It
is a "…vast, translucent pool of paint, a reminder that the materials available to the artist themselves surrender the
maximum of values…in these paintings, the medium is not separate from the so-called content…The canvas looks like an ocean;
to carry the simile further, it is as if we are looking down on the mildly lapping waters of the sea near a pier and, in the
half light, gazing at things surfacing or floating in the water. The motifs in these canvases literally surface in the pool
of paint, and they convey a variety of associations" (Ibid.).
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Lot
76
of
115
WINTER AUCTION 2008
10-11 DECEMBER 2008
Estimate
$250,000 - 350,000
Rs 1,20,00,000 - 1,68,00,000
Winning Bid
$235,750
Rs 1,13,16,000
(Inclusive of Buyer's Premium)
USD payment only.
Why?
ARTWORK DETAILS
V S Gaitonde
Untitled
Signed and dated in English and Devnagari (verso)
1965
Oil on canvas
50 x 36 in (127 x 91.4 cm)
Category: Painting
Style: Abstract
ARTWORK SIZE:
Height of Figure: 6'