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“My works have introverted quality with intense feelings. When I paint or draw, I also establish a relationship with my subjects. As a social being, it becomes natural. It serves multiple purposes.” - JOGEN CHOWDHURY

Jogen Chowdhury’s art draws inspiration from myriad influences – from the textiles he worked with during his time at the Weavers’ Service Centre and Bengali folk art to Edgar Degas’ sketches, Kathe Kollwitz’s use of... “My works have introverted quality with intense feelings. When I paint or draw, I also establish a relationship with my subjects. As a social being, it becomes natural. It serves multiple purposes.” - JOGEN CHOWDHURY

Jogen Chowdhury’s art draws inspiration from myriad influences – from the textiles he worked with during his time at the Weavers’ Service Centre and Bengali folk art to Edgar Degas’ sketches, Kathe Kollwitz’s use of line, and the sinuous curves of Hindu temple sculptures. Though the Bengali influence in his work is undeniable, his attention to figuration and his skilful composition is what makes his art unique and distinct. “It seems to me that the depth of perception that comes across in figuration, the way figures can illuminate life may not be possible through other means. I want to portray our human environment, the people of our country, their nature, their way of sitting because they are different from others. You’ll notice that there’s a peculiar Indianness in their gestures and that attracts me. And it is these particular characteristics we see that I wish to distill in my art.” (Artist quoted in Rakhi Sarkar, Jogen Chowdhury and Rita Dutta, Jogen Chowdhury: His Life and Times, Kolkata: CIMA Gallery Pvt. Ltd., 2006, p. 37)

Chowdhury’s artistic oeuvre spans over six decades and presents his observations of people and their quotidian lives. “People for me are an increasingly sophisticated and alluring proposition when I look for a subject. Gone are the days when I did studies, now it is the chemistry of two people in heated conversation that stirs the stimulus within me.” (Artist quoted in Uma Nair, Jogen Chowdhury: Abahoman – Floating Life, New Delhi: Vadehra Art Gallery, 2007, p. 7)

As a result, his works continue to be “deeply engaged with the manner of living, the minutiae of his milieu, the general ‘drama of life’ unfolding around him: intimate portraitures, paintings/drawings of man, plant and animal life.” (Nawaid Anjum, “Jogen Chowdhury: The Enchantment of the Everyday,” The Punch Magazine, 31 December 2020, online) Characterised by oddly fluid, amoeba–like figures, intricate cross–hatching and highly decorative surfaces, Chowdhury’s figuration thus draws equally from the natural and the psychological. His works document contemporary human relationships and experiences drawing on elements of traditional imagery with a seemingly effortless interplay of boldness and fragility, violence and beauty.

The freely rendered, and often distorted, figures in Chowdhury’s art stand out due to the manner in which he “weaves the saris or odhini of the women or the dhoti of the men into spectacular contemporary forms that tell the magic of the tale.” (Nair, pp. 7–8) At the same time, he “coats his images in garb and satire, fleshing out their rotundities with an eye for detailing and traditional delineating techniques” that give his works “a profound sense of solidity and monumentality that seems to belong to another age.” (Nair, p. 8)

Chowdhury adopted his trademark style of minute cross–hatching in his art in the 1960s. This was a conscious decision that went hand–in–hand with his preference for using ink and pastel to render the unbroken, meandering lines that featured in the majority of his works. The cross–hatching technique, usually using black ink, helped him to “build up a surface quality that wouldn’t be possible with watercolour and brush. I’ve been doing this for years, using the minute mesh of criss–cross lines to which different tones are added. I find that this technique lends sensitivity to the pictures and is hence vital to my art.” (Artist quoted in Sarkar, Chowdhury and Dutta, p. 44)

Although the artist’s technique of cross–hatching has remained largely consistent throughout his career, his compositions encompass a wide range of themes and moods. While the forms in his early dream paintings had a surrealist element to them, he began to focus more on the human form and human interaction on a personal level from the 1980s onwards. The figures themselves are infused with a slightly distorted quality, bordering on the grotesque, an element that reflects his opinion of the privileged classes and business community he witnessed around him, as evident in the present lot. “He has as it were, tried to plumb the depths of an abundantly fecund unconscious, coming up with images at once fantastic, archetypal and visually poetic. The familiar stuff of dreams; snakes, fish, fruit, flowers, hand, breast, appear in a soft welter of forms, curiously afloat or held in limbo, evoking associations which are erotic in a most tender, mellow way.” (Deepak Ananth, “An Engagement with Reality,” India Myth and Reality Aspects of Modern Indian Art, Oxford: Museum of Modern Art, 1982, p. 58)

Painted over a period of 34 years, the present lot is Chowdhury’s ode to Kolkata – the city that he grew up in. It comprises of five panels, each depicting various scenes that he associates with his memories of the city. “While on the one hand each of the five canvases maintains an internal self–sufficiency as coherent compositional statements, placing them beside each other to construct a whole, of mural proportions, could possibly transform how we view them as a complete conglomerate and a continuity of thought, rather than independent, separate units.” (Dr Sanjoy Kumar Mallik, “Jogen Chowdhury,” Ode to the Monumental, Mumbai: Saffronart, 2014, p. 87)

Created with consummate skill, this 25–feet wide work is unique in its depiction of simple and bold forms done in Chowdhury’s trademark style. “Mental re–enactments make the gesticulations and the juxtapositions of bodies more loaded, but also cause the images to waver between message and hieroglyph, narration and symbolism. It makes the images more complex, also more tantalising. Meaning rustles through the characters and situations, creating ripples, but passing by without settling into a narrative.” (Masanori Fukuoka, R Siva Kumar and Jogen Chowdhury, “Jogen Chowdhury: Lyric and Enigmatic Visions,” Jogen Chowdhury: Enigmatic Visions, Japan: Glenbarra Art Museum, 2005, p. 11)

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