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

1780 1800 1820 1840 1860 1880 1900 1910 1920 1925 1930 1935 1940 1945 1950 1955 1960 1965 1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 2000 d.p. r oy C HoWdHury 15 June 1899 – 15 October 1975 an Old Man Watercolour & wash on paper, 1925 Signed in Bengali ‘Shri Debi Prosad’ l.r. 8.1 x 10.8 in (20.3 x 27.5 cm) Condition Two tiny holes c.l. Provenance From an important family collection, Kolkata ` 600,000 – 900,000 US$ 12,000 – 18,000 65 “His (D.P. Roy Choudhury) return to the Bengal school did indeed, paradoxically, connote a phenomenal departure from it, for he was to achieve that most rare synthesis of western craftsmanship and Indian idealism in the finest art. It was a daring experiment, extremely dangerous, and called for exceptional art knowledge and culture. A lesser man than Choudhury might have degraded the western technique and the Indian idealism, and conceived a hybrid monstrosity. He developed a singularly felicitous and individual style, adapting western art science to Indian conceptions. He discerned the truth and beauty in both. He is our first modern eclectic, our reformer in art. He suffers indeed from no western- phobia; he adopted the western science as the basic foundation of his artistic achievement...The composition, the colour sense and the design are all typically western; yet no western artist can attempt to paint his pictures...Choudhury’s range is versatile; his genius is many- faceted. He is as Stella Kramrisch has said, the classic of the new generation of Indian artists. As a wizard of watercolour he has a solid continental reputation, and his mastery of the medium is unequalled in the country. Water colour is to him a romantic dreamland where he frolics, Comus- like, for the sheer joy of it and conjures up visions of powerful and impossible splendour. His subtle colours sing and dance in opalescent harmony; each due is masterfully distilled to its deepest glow. The subdued colour magic is compelling; it haunts. His watercolours have the depth and luminosity of oils, without their attendant heaviness. He ceaselessly experiments, ever seeking newer ranges of colour symphony. The tints blend and coalesce in perfect unison in deliberate compositions of rare originality, shuffled and reshuffled in his inventive brain.” Rao, P.R. Ramachandra [1943]. Choudhury & His Art. Bombay: New Book Company; pp.3-5. Creative India BENGaL | D.P. Roy Chowdhury 151 150