Important Notice

"From the very beginning of my life as a painter it has been my aim to be able to express my joys and sorrows through colour and line as freely as a child expresses its hunger by crying or its joy through laughter. For this purpose, I had to learn the vocabulary of art and also draw sustenance from the vast treasure accumulated from the past and practiced at present all over the world" (K.K. Hebbar, Voyage in Images, Jehangir Art Gallery,... "From the very beginning of my life as a painter it has been my aim to be able to express my joys and sorrows through colour and line as freely as a child expresses its hunger by crying or its joy through laughter. For this purpose, I had to learn the vocabulary of art and also draw sustenance from the vast treasure accumulated from the past and practiced at present all over the world" (K.K. Hebbar, Voyage in Images, Jehangir Art Gallery, Mumbai, 1991, not paginated).

A pioneer of Indian modernism, Hebbar combined Indian and Western influences in both his style and the subjects he chose to portray. Early in his career, he renounced the academic realism that he was trained in at the Sir J.J. School of Art in Mumbai for a more personal idiom that better suited the themes he wanted to explore in his work. "Hebbar is a difficult artist to tag a name on. He is unorthodox, though trained in an orthodox western style. Avowedly an Indian mannerist, he is free from pseudo-traditional clichés. Though a lover of non-realistic forms, he is not an abstractionist. Deeply interested in the inter- weave of forms and space, he cannot be called a cubist. The different modalities of modern painting, however, are touched on and off, without making a creed" (V.R. Amberkar, Hebbar, Lalit Kala Akademi, New Delhi, 1960, not paginated).

Several of Hebbar's works engaged with the expression of music, rhythm and dance through the painted surface. Perhaps inspired by his own formal training in Kathak, Hebbar "…attempted to infuse the paintings with the soothing quality of Indian music, and rhythms of folk and classical dance…he sought to express sound as colour: the musician and his instrument disintegrate; vibrant colours dominate the canvas, echoing sound waves" (Amrita Jhaveri, A Guide to 101 Modern and Contemporary Indian Artists, India Book House, Mumbai, 2005, p. 22). In the present lot, Hebbar's graceful line and unique daubing application of colour on the surface capture the notes played by the solitary flautist standing at its center. Although the subject's features are indistinct, and his form almost blends into his surroundings, this painting executed in a vibrant palette dominated by blues, recalls the figure of Lord Krishna playing his bansuri.

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