Osian's Auction Catalogue Select Masterpieces of Indian Modern and Contemporary Art | June 2009

109 50 Jamini Roy (1887 – 1972) Untitled Tempera on board, early 1940s Signed in Bengali ‘Jamini Roy’ l.r. 17.1 x 12.4 in (43.5 x 32.0 cm) INR 1,000,000 – 1,250,000 National Art Treasure Non–Exportable Item A similar work was exhibited in Timeless Visions, Contemporary Art of India , From the Chester and Davida Herwitz Collection. “With a modernist’s sensibility, Roy refined and adapted rural Bengali painting. He took the artists’ earth pigments made from local materials, limiting his work to six or seven colours; he painted on clay or lime-coated cloth or paper and on wooden boards using egg tempera or tamarind glue as a binding medium. The works shown in this exhibition exemplify his approach as he applied it to standard religious subjects – the sacred cow; Ravana, the ten-headed villain of the epic Ramayana; and scenes of Jesus from Christian mythology. Jamini Roy found in the materials and styles of indigenous Bengali art a means to create a modern art that was local in its sources, yet deliberate and painterly in its expression, adaptable to themes that transcended the particularities of the religious traditions from which he drew.” – Susan S. Bean, rpt. in Timeless Visions: Contemporary Art of India , p13.