Osian's Auction Catalogue The Masterpieces Series | March 2010

124 74 J yoti B hatt (b.1934) Problem Oil on canvas (pasted on plyboard), 1956 S/d in Gujarati ‘Jyoti Bhatt 56’ l.l. 28.1 x 36.3 in (71.3 x 92.3 cm) Condition Preservation work has been carried out in 2010 by the Osian’s Conservation Department, Mumbai INR 500,000 – 750,000 US$ 10,420 – 15,630 “Modernists who have emerged from the institutional framework of an art department…are, of course, not the first artists to have had an insatiable desire to experiment with techniques as a way of breaking away from tradition. In the context of Jyoti Bhatt, this desire to break away emerged as early as 1956. Immediately after his national award from the…Lalit Kala Akademi for his painting Krishna Leela, he chose to turn in another direction… Omnivorous in his visual appetite, he adroitly shuffled the cards of cubism, abstract expressionism, pop art as well as local visual expression, to dismantle the distinction between different styles imposed by art historical compulsions… The grid-like patterning in Bhatt’s work appears…as a way of accentuating the outlines of form in order to lock them into the flatness of the two-dimensional purity of painting…” – Shukla Sawant, ‘Parallels that Meet: Paintings, Prints and Photographs’ in Jyoti Bhatt: Parallels that Meet , Delhi Art Gallery, New Delhi, 2007, pp.50-55. Illustrated reference Jyoti Bhatt: Parallels that Meet , Delhi Art Gallery, New Delhi, 2007, p.86.