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

s oMnath h oRe 13 April 1921 – 28 June 2006 Animal Bronze (Single Edition), 1992 Initialled and dated in English ‘SH 92’ l.r. on verso 4.5 x 13.0 x 4.0 in (10.5 x 27.5 x 11.0 cm) Provenance Acquired from the Mullick family collection, where the father of the consignor was the Chief Caster for Somnath Hore, Santiniketan. ` 1,200,000 – 1,800,000 US$ 24,000 – 36,000 96 1780 1800 1820 1840 1860 1880 1900 1910 1920 1925 1930 1935 1940 1945 1950 1955 1960 1965 1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 2000 “Somnath Hore began to do sculptures, or bronzes as he prefers to call them, in 1974... Appropriating the medium and the art form as an outsider he did not feel compelled to take cue from other sculptors. His bronzes have their antecedents in his prints... Most of Somnath Hore’s sculptures are small. But they have the right scale in relation to his forming and performing hands. The modelling of the face, the hunched back, the folds and axial shifts of the body, everything carries the imprint of the artist’s hands. Turning his bronzes in our hands or running our hands over them, we become aware of this intimate shaping process. The visual metamorphoses of the punched holes, the slit surfaces, the torn edges, the marks left by molten wax, and the rugged channels, into empty eyes and wordless mouths, into torn and scalded skin, into mangled bodies, exposed bones and misshappened are also most convincing at this scale... He puts form-realization above the political overtones of subject-matter, and believes that great art outlives its historical moment. In his own words the artistic excellence of art ‘is revealed through its own components, not because of any message or polemic’. The strength and the radical edge of his work comes from this fusion of means and meaning.” [R. Siva Kumar, rpt. in Sarkar, Rakhi [Director] [1995]. Somnath Hore: Bronzes. Calcutta: [ExC.] CIMA; pp.35-36.] 217 216 Creative India BENGAL | Somnath Hore & Santiniketan