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

37 12 Biren De (b.1926) Untitled Oil on canvas, 1974 S/d in English ‘Biren de 74’ l.l. and on verso 55.1 x 40.0 in (140.0 x 101.6 cm) Inscribed in English ‘APRIL 74 (b), BIREN DE’ on verso. Label of ‘Hamish Dewar Ltd, Conservation and Restoration of Paintings’ on the middle bar of the stretcher INR 2,400,000 – 3,000,000 USD 50,000 – 62,500 “The composite ‘whole’, mandala, result of conglomeration of subsidiary energies, and held together by the ‘diamond-core’, the bindu, has a white- hot aura all around. The psyche travels continuously towards this aural rim, touches it, then comes back invariably to the core again, thus giving the whole experience a simultaneous outward-inward thrust. Then, slowly, and in keeping with the pace of one’s transcendental evolution, this composite ball of energy with its ever-expanding aura, starts its journey, thereby causing rupture of planes around it. Gradually, this continuing process of psychic experience takes one beyond all sensations of the phenomenal world, bringing him nearer and nearer to an efflorescence, as it were, of expanded consciousness. So the fixed central point – the still centre – within our being, therefore, is the initiator of all our movements as well as the home, the ultimate reality, to which we return.” – Ajit Mookerjee, rpt. in Biren De , LKA, 1985.