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

THE PASSIONATE DETACHMENT 168 150 ISHA MAHAMMAD (b.1933) Charpayi Coolie S/d in English, l.r. Oil on canvas, 1977 84.5 x 109.5 cm. (33.3 x 43.1”) “ To me painting is not an absolute pleasure, material or spiritual… It is a kind of subjective realisation of the agonising and exploding contemporary life as a whole, that has its roots in the past and future, which finds its expression through abstract and semi-abstract patterns and figures on my canvas. Sometimes, they are obvious and exposed symbolism of stage-set composition with vital colours. But I never wish them to be sterile or innocuous.” (Isha Mahammad, in Drawings by Fourteen Contemporary Artists of Bengal 1970). “ Like many of his contemporaries, Isha Mahammad started his artistic career with a brain-load of artistic ideas mostly of Parisian origin… He realised soon enough the extent of borrowed elements in his art and his tour to Germany, London and Paris in 1968 allowed him closer access to European modernism… Back home he began… to change his style and technique…His increasing dependence on his skill to draw well had brought about a synthesis in his art almost like a combination of Atul Bose and Nikhil Biswas… By giving up his earlier preoccupation with modern imagery of western origin, he has thus been able to delve deep into his past to paint characters to unfold his story, in thoughtfully designed setting and with a believable presence by his life-like rendering of the chosen subject. Visual charm of naturalism, coupled with didactic appeal of interpretive realism, has enriched his paintings of the last two decades and hold promises of further development along the same way. “(Arun Ghose, rpt. in BAAC Retrospective ExC. 1956-99 , 1999). Rs. 125,000 – 175,000 $ 2,660 – 3,725