Osian's Auction Catalogue Creative India Series 1 Bengal | December 2011

J amini r oy 11 April 1887 – 24 April 1972 Farmer Tempera on cardboard, Early 1920s Initialed in English ‘J.R.’ l.r. 21.6 x 28.0 in (54.1 x 69.9 cm) Condition Previously restored. Minor paint loss in few places. Provenance Acquired from the collection of Manindranath Chatterjee who was the assistant to Jamini Roy for over 25 years. ` 1,600,000 – 2,400,000 US$ 32,000 – 48,000 National Art Treasure Non-Exportable Item 47 1780 1800 1820 1840 1860 1880 1900 1910 1920 1925 1930 1935 1940 1945 1950 1955 1960 1965 1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 2000 Creative India BENGaL | Jamini Roy 115 114 “It is well known that he was also an ardent admirer of Van Gogh… It was probably the Dutch master’s splendour and raw vitality of colours that inspired Roy to select Van Gogh from among the various renowned painters of the time. Van Gogh’s world being flooded in a dazzling resplendence, his paintings too were similarly splashed with glorious hues…What Jamini Roy inherited from Van Gogh and his followers was restricted solely to the sphere of colours. But like the Impressionist painters Jamini Roy never used black in his landscapes. He used ultramarine or Prussian blue instead. Since he began his landscapes with these blues, the other colours of the paintings too had to be set to the same scale. These paintings have been enriched by the unrestricted application of the countless shades got by mixing white with the seven colours of the rainbow. It is only rarely that we get to see such use of the brush and colours in small scale works of the artists of our country.” [Paritosh Sen, rpt. In CMC Art Gallery ExC.; Kolkata, 1991; np.]