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

165 THE MASTERPIECES & MUSEUM-QUALITY SERIES 120 Gulammohammed SHEIKH [b . 1937, Surendranagar, Saurashtra] Cityscape S/d in Gujarati l.r. Charcoal & conte on paper, 1993 115.0 x 170.0 cm (45.3 x 66.9 in) Rs. 600,000 – 700,000 $ 12,950 – 15,100 £ 7,100 – 8,275 ‘It has been a lasting concern with Sheikh to delve into what is called ‘past’, what is called ‘tradition’, what has been labeled ‘present’, what is ‘front’ and what is not. Traversing space and time, he performs in an assimilative and transformative mode, picking up images that in the process of being drawn transform themselves – and transform the world around them…. Certitudes fall apart, the past and the present intersect at the focus of memory: indeed, the past exists if it actively forms part of memory, Sheikh would argue.. . A porous memory becomes then, an essential feature of the artist’s subjectivity, allowing a flow of many converging currents to form the fluid and fertile terrain whence this subjectivity may articulate itself.’ – Chaitanya Sambrani, rpt. in Gulammohammad Sheikh: Recent Works. Sakshi 1996 ExC.