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 1980 1990 1995 2000 2005 b ikash b hattaChaRjee 21 June 1940 – 18 December 2006 Nude Study Series Charcoal and Dry pastel on paper, 1960-1 19.0 x 30.0 in (49.0 x 75.3 cm) Condition Good, minor foxing mark at some places Provenance Private Collector, New Delhi ` 800,000 – 1,200,000 US$ 16,000 – 24,000 121 Illustrative Reference for the work of same series Panda, Chitta [Curator] [1997]. Contemporary Art of Bengal. Calcutta: [ExC.] Victoria Memorial in collaboration with Calcutta Metropolitan Festival of Art; p.6 [Bikash Bhattacharjee ‘Untitled’] Full image for Lot 121 on pp.256-257. ‘These pastels done mostly in the final years at his art college in the live classes or elsewhere are works of no mere trainee artist of promise and talent. Rather they look as studies that an accomplished painter does before launching a major project… The artist views the front of him as an engaging individual, a personality and a character. She poses often in a quiet posture conscious of the artist’s scouring eye. But she is totally unaware that her naked or draped body also contours a personality, even a life or a story, which the artist’s gaze explores with his searching visual insight without letting her guess a whit about it.’ – Manasij Majumder rpt in Bikash Bhattacharjee: Early Drawings 2002 Galerie 88 ExC.