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

89 THE MASTERPIECES & MUSEUM-QUALITY SERIES 58 Satish GUJRAL [b .1925, Jhelum, Punjab, present-day Pakistan] Deity Burnt Wood & Mixed Media, 1990 120.0 x 90.5 x 21.5 cm (47.2 x 35.6 x 8.5 in) Rs. 1,250,000 – 1,500,000 $ 27,000 – 32,400 £ 14,800 – 17,750 ‘These smouldering cinders into which I have reduced all I possess and all that possessed me, may either represent this self-destruc- tive tendency or a vain hope of finding in the depth of pessimism a fountain of youth.’’ – Satish Gujral, rpt. in Satish Gujral’s: Brunt Woods and Architecture 1990 ExC. 59 Satish GUJRAL [b .1925, Jhelum, Punjab, present-day Pakistan] Seated Figure Burnt Wood & Mixed Media, 1999 71.5 x 56.0 x 49.0 cm (28.1 x 22.0 x 19.3 in) Rs. 400,000 – 500,000 $ 8,650 – 10,800 £ 4,725 – 5,925 ‘My emphasis…is mainly on the lyrical elements of the imagery that has traditionally symbolized the material form of Ganesha. In doing this I make no effort on the conventional but go by the spirit that originally evoked the rationally improbable image of this God. Fol- lowing that tradition I too give no credence to the previously existing forms and attempt to create a myth of my own.’ – Satish Gujral rpt in Satish Gujral: Iconic Paintings & Architecture BAAC 1990 ExC. ‘They are made of hollow wooden forms, burnt down to charcoal, spreads of leather, burn smudged with the blower, suggesting some- thing organic which is destroyed and sometimes the forms are tied with leather thongs with wooden pieces, the way we stanch a bleed- ing wound…. Satish Gujral has reduced to charcoal all he possesses and all that possesses him, as if, like Mirza Ghalib listening to the noise of his own destruction. His is the vision of a Waste Land.’ – Santo Datta, rpt. in Indian Express, 29 November 1988. Please also refer to Satish Gujral: Iconic Paintings And Architecture, 9 – 28 December 1990 , BAAC ExC. for similar works. ‘In different periods and in differ- ent moods, different concerns have driven me. Some of these concerns offered relief, others stirred or provoked.The vitality of human experience need each of these injections in varying situa- tions… I believe no art move- ment or period of an individual artist is an improvement on a previous stage of creation even when it has grown out of it… This may explain the variance in the style that continue to occur in the evolution of my work… In each period I have tried to create an ouvre that reflects my immediate experience and world view, and try organizing it into a form that embodies the spirit of changing times. And how I re- spond to it.’ – Satish Gujral, rpt. in Satish Gujral’s Paintings, Draw- ings and Sculpture ExC 2001. Refer to op. cit. for colour illus- trations of work from the same series.