Osian's Auction Catalogue India The Passionate Detachment | February 2001

EXPERIMENTS & EXPRESSIONISM 159 136 K. H. ARA (1913 — 85) Woman with Jewellery Signed in English, l.c. Pen & Ink, 1945 58.1 x 45.4 cm. (22.9 x 17.9”) “ Ara’s art has always been intuitive, imaginative, spontaneous and improvised and not deliberate and intellectual…This has produced in him a certain eclecticism which is not really imitative or derivative but has led him from style to style… Critical appraisal is equally difficult because the bad mingles with the good not only in a series of paintings but in a single work… (however) with all its various facets, his work has a pervading quality of totality and unity which overcomes defective detail or weakness of drawing.” (Rudi von Leyden, from Studies in the Development of Ara , in Marg 6.2 (1951 ), p52). Rs. 275,000 – 325,000 $ 5,850 – 7,445 Conservation work has been carried out on this painting. Ara had the habit of experimenting with many styles, especially after visiting exhibitions of contemporary artists, and at times ‘adopting’ their style as if to prove that he could paint any thing, in any style.