Important Notice

An early pioneer of modern Indian art, Ramkinkar Baij was a versatile painter and sculptor, and credited as being "one of the first bridge builders between Indian and Western modern art." (R Siva Kumar, Ramkinkar Baij: A Retrospective, 1906 - 1980, New Delhi: Delhi Art Gallery and the National Gallery of Modern Art, 2012, p. 15)

The present lot - a bronze sculpture depicting Gandhi in mid-stride, walking resolutely during the... An early pioneer of modern Indian art, Ramkinkar Baij was a versatile painter and sculptor, and credited as being "one of the first bridge builders between Indian and Western modern art." (R Siva Kumar, Ramkinkar Baij: A Retrospective, 1906 - 1980, New Delhi: Delhi Art Gallery and the National Gallery of Modern Art, 2012, p. 15)

The present lot - a bronze sculpture depicting Gandhi in mid-stride, walking resolutely during the historic Dandi March - is an example of Baij's fluid amalgamation of diverse styles in sculpting. Cast circa 1970s, it was originally conceived and executed in 1948 as a series of small but significant sculptures made in cement and plaster of paris, in the immediate aftermath of Gandhi's assassination. Sculpted in two versions, which portray Gandhi in unconventional forms, the works in this series are considered one of the most powerful representations of the national leader. A third version, a large-scale installation situated at the Kala Bhavan in Santiniketan, was executed in the mid-1960s.

The present lot follows the second version, depicting the figure as slighter and more elongated as compared to the first, which portrayed a stocky-figured Gandhi. "Evidently, it was not Ramkinkar's intention to do a conventional portrait of Gandhi; he wanted to create a figure embodying his vision of Gandhi, a vision in which Gandhi was a metaphor for human energy - a man 'who appeared to be sprinting when he walked'... With the head lowered, his Gandhi... is immersed in thought even as he strides ahead. It is... an attempt to give a formal and somewhat abstract expression to it. In it the body is geometrized and construed as intersecting forces rising spirally upwards from the base. This is noticeable more clearly when the sculpture is viewed in the round and the spiral development of the form, and the forward movement of the figure is experienced as counterpoised within in its dynamic rhythm." (Siva Kumar, p. 262)

According to Siva Kumar, "Making a sculpture showing Gandhi and Tagore together was one of Ramkinkar's long cherished dreams. Not a formal double portrait but a large monumental sculpture, as tall as the trees, standing tall on the landscape of Santiniketan as they stood towering over the political and cultural horizons of India." However, at the time this series was conceived, Baij had been residing at Santiniketan and had witnessed first-hand the effects of war, famine and communal violence that had impacted the Bengal region. His works from this time had taken a political tone, and he executed several paintings and sculptures that served as an allegorical commentary on the harsh socio-economic and political conditions of that time. In such context, the present lot "represents not the Gandhi of the Dandi March... but the Gandhi of Noakhali, the man who walked courageously into a zone of communal violence trying to calm religious hatred, and finally paid for the pursuit of peace with his life." (Siva Kumar, p. 261)

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