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Lot 32

 

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In 1951, Jehangir Sabavala returned from the Academie Andre Lhote in Paris to Bombay and merged his Cubist training with the bright colours and visual landscape of India. The process involved a "great deal of intellectualising: the analysis of planes, the passages of light. I became more sure of how I wanted my painting fractured and adopted a definite form, a daring, high-pitched and high-keyed palette." (Artist quoted in Ranjit Hoskote, The... In 1951, Jehangir Sabavala returned from the Academie Andre Lhote in Paris to Bombay and merged his Cubist training with the bright colours and visual landscape of India. The process involved a "great deal of intellectualising: the analysis of planes, the passages of light. I became more sure of how I wanted my painting fractured and adopted a definite form, a daring, high-pitched and high-keyed palette." (Artist quoted in Ranjit Hoskote, The Crucible of Painting: The Art of Jehangir Sabavala, Mumbai: Eminence Designs Pvt. Ltd., 2005, p. 63)

An unusual work for the artist-who was known for his vast, ethereal landscapes-the present lot depicts a gathering of boats at a seaside harbour, possibly at sunset as indicated by the warm colours of the sea and the sails. "His forms of the early 1950s are conceived and delivered in taut lines and strong wedges; the paintings are exuberant, with the stylistic register varying from expressionist brio to abstractionist clarity, with the occasional impressionistic play of light and brush-stroke." (Hoskote, p. 68) The clarity of expression and the confident use of colour and delineation are indicators of an artist firmly in control of his subject and his medium.

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