Osian's Auction Catalogue The Masterpieces and Museum Quality Series | October 2004

146 OSIAN ’ s–CONNOISSEURS OF ART 105 Gulam Rasool SANTOSH [ 1929-1997/ b . Srinagar, Kashmir] Kashmir Series Signed in Devanagari l.r. Gouache on paper, 1957 38.5 x 46.5 cm (15.2 x 18.3 in) Rs. 175,000 – 250,000 $ 3,800 – 5,400 £ 2,075 – 2,950 “‘I am not literally abstract; there is much of the influence of my environment and atmosphere – I mean, of Kashmir…” The conical forms which we perceive in Santosh’s paintings can be traced to Kashmir: to the coniferous trees, the Kashmiri cap, the jagged roofs of Kashmiri houses, even the mountain peaks… “I am inspired by Kashmir intensely. It is in my blood. When I see other things in other places, the image of Kashmir haunts me with its naked and overladen peaks, the engulfing whiteness of winter and the tall, dark trees rising majestically into the skies,” says Santosh. The artist sensed the possibility of a kind of severity and rigidity in the delineation of this conical form, which might have led him to texture in order to relieve the all too precise structure, to add a new formal dimension. This feeling for Kashmir landscape has grown more subjective during the years he has been away from home.’ – S.A. Krishnan, rpt. in LKC 34 September 1987; p75.