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

93 MASTERPIECES & MUSEUM-QUALITY III “To me, painting is not an absolute pleasure, material or spiritual, as I believe pleasure is a mixed feeling of man’s complex experiences of joys and sorrows. 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 just innocuous.” (Isha Mahammad, rpt. in Drawings by Fourteen Contemporary Artists of Bengal , Calcutta, 1970.) All works are Untitled & oil on canvas. 1971 1977 1996 2003 ISHA MAHAMMAD Lot 38 overleaf