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

149 THE MASTERPIECES & MUSEUM-QUALITY SERIES 107 Shanti DAVE [b . 1931, Ahmedabad, Gujarat] Village S/d in Devanagari l.r. Oil on canvas pasted on board, 1952 72.5 x 116.5 cm (28.5 x 45.9 in) Various parts of the painting have flaks of paint missing. Rs. 600,000 – 700,000 $ 12,950 – 15,100 £ 7,100 – 8,275 ‘His paintings of the late 1950’s are permeated with a village atmosphere. To be sure, it was not an attempt at romanticizing the village or to make a social comment. But images like women working with their colourful dresses set against thatched ramshackle huts … the animal forms, landscape elements are all reduced to two dimensional areas of colour and texture put together rather like pieces of mosaic bounded by a sensitive dark ouline. The images with their characteristic distortions and elongated proportions possess a naivete and peculiarity of their own.’ – Ratan Parimoo, rpt. in Recent Paintings of Shanti Dave. Dhoomimal Gallery 1965 ExC.