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

ABSTACT-FIGURATIVE DILEMMA 189 176 NIKHIL BISWAS (1930 - 66) Girl Signed in English, l.r. Watercolour on paper, late 1950s 55.8 x 38.9 cm. (21.8 x 15.2”) Rs. 75,000 – 125,000 $ 1,595 – 2,660 175 GOPAL GHOSE (1913 - 80) Portrait of a Girl Mixed media on paper, mid 1950s 35.0 x 24.4 cm. (13.65 x 9.52”) Rs. 125,000 – 175,000 $ 2,660 – 3,725 “As with all dependable artists, his imagery was a consummation, at his best, of draughtsmanship, stirring up the imagination. The results then were seamless welds of the eye and the mind and hand. That Gopal Ghosh’s paintings and drawings refuse to leave the viewer feeling bland is explained by its diversity of treatment. This diversity was a matter of his being open to styles, quick to respond to turns of visual phrase whether realistic, decorative, mannered or pregnant of the abstract.” (Samir Batra, in The Statesman, 19.12.87 ).