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

29 8 Jogen Chowdhury (b.1939) Woman under the quilt Pen & ink and pastel on paper pasted on board, 2004 22.1 x 28.0 in (56.0 x 71.2 cm) Inscribed in English ‘Artist: Jogen Chowdhury, Title: ‘’Woman under the quilt (2004)’’, Size: 56.2 x 71.2 cm, Medium: Pen & Ink and Pastles, Year: 2004’ on verso INR 4,000,000 – 5,000,000 USD 83,330 – 104,170 Lot 8 shows a nude on bed under the quilt. She is lost in her reverie. This work at once reminds one of Ismat Chughtai’s short story ‘ Lihaaf ’. The viewer is made a party to this voyeuristic pleasure. “Jogen’s images are both new and magical because they are radically transformed. There is a nerve ending here, a bite and tension to these paintings…This tension, as much as the fascinating mix of the finite and the fantastic, is basic to the genre of Jogen’s work. In the later portraits, an edge is brought to the pictures with satire that responds to his growing indictment of society.”