Important Notice

Jagdish Swaminathan's "Bird, Mountain and Tree" series exemplifies the beauty of basic symbols and geometric shapes found in India's indigenous art traditions. Swaminathan had a profound interest in the folk and tribal art of Central India. This stemmed from his rejection of the idea that Indian modernism developed from encounters with the West-which perhaps held true for some of his contemporaries such as Akbar Padamsee and Jehangir Sabavala.... Jagdish Swaminathan's "Bird, Mountain and Tree" series exemplifies the beauty of basic symbols and geometric shapes found in India's indigenous art traditions. Swaminathan had a profound interest in the folk and tribal art of Central India. This stemmed from his rejection of the idea that Indian modernism developed from encounters with the West-which perhaps held true for some of his contemporaries such as Akbar Padamsee and Jehangir Sabavala. Swaminathan turned inwards instead, looking to lay the foundations of Indian modernism through the nation's own folk and tribal art traditions.

Swaminathan actively sought to solidify his ideas, forming a collective of artists called Group 1890 in 1962, and founding the Roopanker Museum of Art at Bharat Bhavan, Bhopal, in the 1980s. Both the artist collective and the museum supplied him with a platform to refine his ideas. Swaminathan experimented with totemic symbols from early societies in a constant quest to simplify, to find the origins, to return to purity. He also explored a 'primitive' system of communication, adopting ancient symbolism as a tool to reconnect modern Indian art with its indigenous precursors. It is from these ideas that the "Bird, Mountain and Tree" series was born.

The series was self-explanatory. The purity which Swaminathan sought manifested effortlessly through the specific objects, and formed a link with the ancient symbols he strived to understand. In the present lot, the bird, mountain and tree are separate objects which complement each other. The mountain with the tree at its peak provides perspective and a sense of monumentality which is balanced by what appears to be the path taken by a bird rising upwards. Swaminathan achieves a sense of harmony by juxtaposing the bird in motion with the static mountain and tree. He also offers the possibility of a more layered, deeper interpretation in which the objects signify more than their presence on the canvas.

The painting was exhibited with a few select works by the artist in the group show, Contemporary Indian Art as part of The Festival of India in Britain, in 1982. Held at The Royal Academy of Arts in London, the show was curated by Richard Bartholomew, Geeta Kapur and Akbar Padamsee. It featured 133 artworks by forty-five artists, and was divided into two parts. The present lot was displayed in the first part of the exhibition, titled The Gesture and Motif. The Festival of India was "designed to project the spirit of India and her achievements," (Contemporary Indian Art: An Exhibition of The Festival of India brochure, Mumbai: Vakils, 1982) and in this regard, Swaminathan's painting encapsulates the goal perfectly. The painting would have also presented a very different concept of Indian modernism to the British public, which was "relatively unacquainted with it," (Contemporary Indian Art brochure) thus taking Swaminathan's ideology beyond the borders of India to a wider audience.

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