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

58 OSIAN ’ s–CONNOISSEURS OF ART 30 Bikash BHATTACHARJEE [ b . 1940, Calcutta, West Bengal] Seated Girl Signed in English l.l. Pastel on paper, 1964 90.5 x 55.0 cm (35.6 x 21.7 in) Preservation work will be required on this work of art. Rs. 350,000 – 425,000 $ 7,550 – 9,200 £ 4,150 – 5,025 ‘These pastels done mostly in the final years at his art college in the live classes or elsewhere are works of no mere trainee artist of promise and talent. Rather they look as studies that an accomplished painter does before launching a major project…For Bikash women are in general neither ugly nor beautiful in terms of curves and contours of flesh…The artist views the front of him as an engaging individual, a personality and a character. She poses often in a quiet posture conscious of the artist’s scouring eye. But she is totally unaware that her naked or draped body also contours a personality, even a life or a story, which the artist’s gaze explores with his searching visual insight without letting her guess a whit about it.’ – Manasij Majumder, rpt. in Bikash Bhattacharjee: Early Drawings, 2002 Galerie 88 ExC.