Osian's Auction Catalogue Masterpieces and Museum-Quality III | March 2004

103 MASTERPIECES & MUSEUM-QUALITY III 44 MANU PAREKH (b.1939 / Ahmedabad, Gujarat) Benaras Landscape III S/d in English l.l. & inscribed on verso Oil on canvas, 2001 89.5 x 147.5 cm (35.2 x 58.1 in) Rs. 400,000 – 500,000 US$ 8,900 – 11,100 GB£ 4,900 – 8,950 OSIANs S.I.R. ANALYSIS [1992–2001] Present Estimate 195.59 Previous High 103.26 [So.Lon/08.10.96; oil on canvas, 1982] Previous Average 39.26 Auction Average 289.84 Opinion Manu Parekh’s work, especially his very best, is extremely underpriced. Though the Benaras theme has been a favourite of his since the 1970s, each time something new does appear in the imagery. An average S.I.R. of 110–120 by 2005 end is likely. “In the Benaras panels, for instance, it is the sheer rendering of the crepuscular architectural presence of the ghats and the dhows that produces that elusive quality of pictorial eloquence: no magnified slimeslick lilies to overpower the composition and no over-expressionistic pigmental flourishes to overstate the effect. While in the earlier panels (especially from the 1992 series), it was the uninhibited, uncompromising vitality of the river-city with all its elemental rage that inspired the painter to launch into description, it is now the city reposing, the city reclaiming itself from its busy history that he seeks to make a subject of his contemplation. The trees partition the ghatscape irregularly, framing areas of darkness and light even as kinetic force-fields of colour gather strength in the shrine-spaces. It is to convey the experience of an almost monumental worldliness that we find these images mostly aspiring.” (Abhay Sardesai, in ‘Movement into Maturity –Manu Parekh’s Oil on Canvas’, rpt. in Manu Parekh, Exhibition of Paintings – Portrait of Flowers/ Landscape of River EXC. Tao Art Gallery 2003.) Lot 44 is illustrated in Manu Parekh, Exhibition of Paintings –Portrait of Flowers/Landscape of River EXC. Tao Art Gallery 2003. [The work is mistakenly dated as 2003 in the aforementioned Manu Parekh EXC. , rather than 2001.]