Important Notice

"My prints and painting reflects the same penchant for experimentation with form and space, image and ground relationship, harmony and balance..."
- LALU PRASAD SHAW

Lalu Prasad Shaw's work showcases an awareness of myriad traditions - the pre-Independence Company School, the cave paintings of Ajanta, and the Kalighat patuas of Bengal, recognisable by their simplicity, smooth lines and flat colours. The result is a... "My prints and painting reflects the same penchant for experimentation with form and space, image and ground relationship, harmony and balance..."
- LALU PRASAD SHAW

Lalu Prasad Shaw's work showcases an awareness of myriad traditions - the pre-Independence Company School, the cave paintings of Ajanta, and the Kalighat patuas of Bengal, recognisable by their simplicity, smooth lines and flat colours. The result is a distinctive style that is clearly located in the present, yet exhibits a timeless transcendence. Shaw's graceful portraits often depict the Bengali middle-class, capturing the protagonists' societal context but also their individuality through an economy of line, colour and proportion, enhanced by his preferred mediums of gouache and tempera. The colours in his paintings are striking; "he uses bold shades often vividly contrasting one another - green with red, white and dark red, or yellow with blues of various intensity," as seen in lots 5 and 20. (Soumitra Das, "Back to a Laidback World," The Telegraph, 2012, online) The red backdrop of both paintings illuminates its subjects, and Shaw cleverly uses the colour to draw the eye to other aspects as well - the folds of the fabrics, facial features, and feet adorned with alta are tinged with red. In the present lot, Shaw depicts his protagonist wearing simple, elegant jewellery typical of everyday life in India.

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