Important Notice

“I don’t possess any dreamlands. This is my nature throughout my life - I am very close to the event.” - BIKASH BHATTACHARJEE

Bikash Bhattacharjee was an Indian painter who, over the course of his life, gave space to several varied subjects on his canvas. He went on to eke out a prolific style that toed the line between academic realism and a sort of macabre surrealist dimension. According to art critic Manasij Majumder,... “I don’t possess any dreamlands. This is my nature throughout my life - I am very close to the event.” - BIKASH BHATTACHARJEE

Bikash Bhattacharjee was an Indian painter who, over the course of his life, gave space to several varied subjects on his canvas. He went on to eke out a prolific style that toed the line between academic realism and a sort of macabre surrealist dimension. According to art critic Manasij Majumder, Bhattacharjee "accepted the challenge of transforming his consummate skill to evoke the subtleties of surface realism into a pliant tool of creativity without dismantling the received art forms." (Manasij Majumder, Close to Events: Works of Bikash Bhattacharjee, New Delhi: Niyogi Books, 2007, p. 81)

It was Bhattacharjee's agile perceptivity, the politically charged atmosphere of Calcutta in the 1940s, as well as his skilled draughtsmanship that culminated into his works and continued to stay with him for the span of his career. Depicted with nuance, his subjects - mostly people from different walks of life - stand opposed to cliched representations of their respective communities. It is largely due to this that his work often doubles as a tool for social criticism. As explained by the artist, "I see myself as a sort of painter journalist, using paint and canvas as a photo-journalist might use his camera. What I have to say is right there on the canvas." (Indian Painting Today, Bombay: Jehangir Art Gallery, 1981, p. 17)

This ability of Bhattacharjee's to elevate his subjects to an existence beyond their circumscribed lives is evident in the present lot. Untitled (In Evening) shows a woman holding a child in her arms, her eyes downcast and her face lit up by a light emanating from a point a short distance away in the painting itself. The woman is placed against a plush backdrop characterised by rich brushstrokes and seems to almost merge with it, yet the scene paradoxically feels barren. The woman asserts her femininity and refuses to meet the viewer's gaze and in doing so, summons a certain poignancy from the onlooker.

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