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Meera Mukherjee's work earned her the title of India’s foremost female sculptor in a male-dominated field. However, for the artist, that was seldom her goal. To Mukherjee, her need to create stemmed from her desire to do so, to capture daily life around her in its truest essence. Hence, it only seems fitting that she drew her inspiration from the common man. Fishermen, weavers, women carrying out chores - seemingly unostentatious subjects found... Meera Mukherjee's work earned her the title of India’s foremost female sculptor in a male-dominated field. However, for the artist, that was seldom her goal. To Mukherjee, her need to create stemmed from her desire to do so, to capture daily life around her in its truest essence. Hence, it only seems fitting that she drew her inspiration from the common man. Fishermen, weavers, women carrying out chores - seemingly unostentatious subjects found themselves immortalised in bronze. "She has created that magic in her work which attracts the lay person as well as the connoisseur because she realizes that for art to be effective, it needs to be controlled: avoiding both sentimentality and oppressive solemnity. No matter how ephemeral the subject (grandmother recounting a fairytale to her grandchild, women poised in the doorway of their homes, women fetching water), they bear the stamp of enraptured attentiveness and a subtlety of observation. Her themes, both rural and urban, have urgency because the vision is never stark or impersonal." (Maitreyi Chatterjee, Meera Mukherjee: Purity of Vision, Kolkata: Akar Prakar; Ahmedabad: Mapin Publishing; New Delhi: Raza Foundation; Kolkata: Emami Art, 2018, p 29).

Mukherjee studied art at the Indian Society of Oriental Art till 1941 before enrolling at Delhi polytechnic in 1947, where she continued her education. She worked under the famed Indonesian painter Effendi, who was living and working at Shantiniketan, after which she left to Germany to study in 1953. D ring her time at Munich's Academy of Fine Arts, her main instructor, Toni Stadler, encouraged her to look back to her roots as opposed to the West regarding her treatment of art. "I belonged to a country which also had a great tradition of its own. It was heritage which had in a thousand ways folded me. And, so though I was at the moment living, learning and growing in the West, I should still find my own way to myself, rooted in the great Indian tradition" (Artist quoted in Meera Mukherjee: Purity of Vision, p 59).

For Mukherjee, committing to her Indianness proved to be a pioneering move, as she eventually adopted te lost-wax technique of bronze casting while simultaneously taking on the role of both artist and artisan. It led to her establishing an artistic voice that was simple and rhythmic, traditional yet modern. These characteristics lend themselves to the seemingly abstract disposition of her works, which, despite their forms, never alienate the viewer. Rather, her artistic vocabulary allows the audience to connect with her sculptures on a fundamental level.

The present lot highlights a distinct feature that showcases the spirit of Mukherjee’s work - the celebration of humanism. She actively focused on portraying life as it is - where the beauty lies in simplicity. "Each piece is like a story told with beauty. It is like a book that creates lovely evocative pictures with an absolute economy of texts, whether it is men in sport with jostling lathis, or the massive sitting Buddha; each creates its own world and seems illuminated from within". (Chatterjee, p 33).

As with the present lot, Mukherjee's work echoes her deep adoration for the every day, along with her choice to move against the tide and steer clear of trends at the time. Even the act of picking mediums such as bronze, brass and terracotta, she honours the idea of staying true to oneself, wherein she reminds the viewer that "If you truly love something, it will show unbeknownst to you." (Artist quoted in Meera Mukherjee: Purity of Vision, p 128)

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