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

46 THE PASSIONATE DETACHMENT 4 V.S.GAITONDE (b. 1924) The Bird Signed in Devanagari, on reverse. Oil on canvas, c.1961 81.3 x 81.3 cm. (32.0 x 32.0”) Rs. 1,000,000 - 1,250,000 $ 21,275 - 26,595 “Gaitonde covers his canvases with carefully graduated areas of paint which culminate in patches and accents of contrasting colour and texture - a method widely employed by abstract expressionists in America and Europe and one that demands a largish canvas which Gaitonde always employs. He paints horizontally, even if the canvas is upright in shape, so there could be references to landscape but mainly his paintings are about paint and its particular qualities and the relationship of one colour to another. I know of no Indian precedent for this but in that itself there is nothing wrong; except for the sensuous quality there is little that is Indian in his work and that quality is not, in any case uniquely Indian”. (Donald Bowen, from LKC # 3 June 1965 , p31). The work has been restored. This rare painting represents one of Gaitonde’s last works before fully surrendering to artistic abstraction in his imagery.