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

43 PHILOSOPHICAL FRAMEWORK 2 BIREN DE (b.1926) Moon & the Fish S/d in English, l.l. Oil on board, 1958 61.0 x 76.2 cm. (24.0 x 30.0”) “ The fish is Biren’s fertility symbol. Perhaps he got it from folk art or from Freud, or from the subterranean currents of his imagination. But he will not discard it till he finds an elliptical form that answers as well the needs of his style. Just now it sums up for him all that he stands for — the elemental freedom, his Bengali instincts, and their associations, the mystery and the fecundity of water… where the creature is shown against the net, or upon the scales as a vital form, one must take it to represent an essential ingredient for the sustenance of men, almost a quintessential representation of life.” (Richard L.Bartolomew, from The Noble Savage and the Ascetic: The Paintings of Biren De, 1949-58, rpt. in Biren De 1976 ). “ Moon and the Fish (1958) is non-figurative. But even here one can discern the motifs however simplified these may be or disguised so as to reduce their literary weightage… In sacrificing conventional symbolism he has gained strength of his architectonic and in the immediacy of colour.” (Richard L.Bartolomew, from The Noble Savage and the Ascetic: The Paintings of Biren De , 1949-58, rpt. in Biren De 1976 ). Rs. 325,000 - 400,000 $ 6,915 - 8,510