Osian's Auction Catalogue ABC Series III | March 2007

ABC Series III 65 67 S. NANDAGOPAL (b.1946) Composition Watercolour and pen and ink on paper. c. 1968 8.7 x 8.3 in (22.0 x 21.2 cm) INR 300,000 – 375,000 USD 6,750 – 8,450 “Such is his trust in the drawing and the technique, that Nandagopal simply works past formal issues as if they do not exist. The normal procedure, specially when one is operating contrary drawing and technique, would be to test these as severely as one would a ‘formal’ problem. Nandagopal spares himself that discipline because he could sense, as Paniker very clearly did, that the technique is something that has been well- tested in the traditional art of the country…To have found so much to do with drawing and to assert form as Nandagopal does it certainly the odd performance in a situation as the present when people would much rather work out their own escape routes into formlessness and whimsicality. To show that there can be a certain kind of drawing and that there can be a certain kind of abstraction that can exist in the present circumstances is to create unpleasantness. The issue that Nandgopal has raised without perhaps intending to is quite fundamental and if he could be seen persisting with it, it could grow vast and create serious unsettlement. For one who has gone so far with it as of now what lies ahead need not prove too much to full.” LKA # 27 April 1979 ; p14.