Osian's Auction Catalogue Indian Modern and Contemporary Art | March 2008

96 68 Rameshwar Broota (b.1941) Ape Series S/d in English on verso ‘R Broota 1977’ ‘R. Broota Triveni Kala Sangam’ on verso Oil on canvas, 1977 54.8 x 54.5 in (139.0 x 138.5 cm) INR 9,200,000 – 12,000,000 USD 230,000 – 300,000 ‘He 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 Sridharini Gallery ExC 1998.