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

161 THE MASTERPIECES & MUSEUM-QUALITY SERIES 117 Rameshwar BROOTA [b . 1941, New Delhi] Fighting Shadows S/d & titled in English on verso Oil on canvas, 1974-5 46.0 x 46.0 cm (18.1 x 18.1 in) Rs. 600,000 – 700,000 $ 12,950 – 15,100 £ 7,100 – 8,275 ‘Broota defended his use of the allegorical method in painting against those who choose abstractions or crass realism. And thus, came his baboons at the conference table, or while weighing merchandise with faulty scales! Here was the art of throwing light on aspects of the world which are ordinarily disregarded. Broota teased his viewers. The deliberate cruelty of man to man, the isolation of the individual from individual, was then his métier, and rightly so. Broota’s extremely well drawn and polished apes mean more than the outer funny forms that meet the eye.’ – Keshav Malik, rpt. in Rameshwar Broota: The Winding Spiral . Shridharini Gallery 1998 ExC. From Cimpanzee to Ape to Man to Universe 1970 1978 1980 1986 1974