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

g anesh P yne b. 11 June 1937 Ivory Merchant Tempera on paper, 1981 S/d in Bengali ‘Ganesh Pyne 81’ l.r. 12.2 x 11.1 in (30.6 x 27.8 cm) Provenance The Mukund and Neerja Lath Collection, Jaipur ` 1,200,000 – 1,800,000 US$ 24,000 – 36,000 118 1780 1800 1820 1840 1860 1880 1900 1910 1920 1925 1930 1935 1940 1945 1950 1955 1960 1965 1970 1980 1990 1995 2000 2005 “For Pyne the eighties began under a pall of gloom. Kartik, his beloved older brother died in 1980, after a long illness. Pyne felt bereft… (and) experienced a severe trauma. No amount of mourning and grieving could assuage his sense of loss. He could not sit with brush and paint for a while and no work was done. But such partings had become a familiar strand in the fabric of Pyne’s life… In the early eighties, Pyne was catapulted into all-India fame when M.F. Husain in an interview to The Illustrated Weekly of India declared Pyne to be the best painter in India. The comment brought Pyne into center-stage resulting in mounting attention and demands from the press, galleries, the buyers who were only in search of signatures and an increasing circle of collectors. It was a disturbing phenomenon for the almost reclusive artist and it aggravated his sense of insecurity.” [Datta, Ella [1998]. Ganesh Pyne: His Life and Times. Calcutta: CIMA; pp.61-63] 251 250 Creative India BENGAL | Nikhil Biswas, Arun Bose, Prokash Karmakar, Shyamal Dutta Ray & Ganesh Pyne