Osian's Auction Catalogue The Osianama Series |February 2013

228 Early 1970s “In the late 1960s and early 1970s, Ghulam Rasool Santosh was among the foremost exponents of the ill- described neo-tantric school of painting. Even if one chose to see his work in a broader context, it belonged to an indigenized school of geometric abstraction, which rested its case with high modernism.” – Gayatri Sinha, rpt. in ‘A remarkable artist, a remarkable show’, The Hindu , February 9, 2001. “The apparent flatness and the livid, swelling texture and designed to hold out in juxtaposition two are qualities of paint. The canvas is treated as a vast area of space from which emerges a formal structure in impasto arrived at organically. The structure appears like a kind of volcanic mass built up by triangles, rectangles circles and an endless variety of geometrical shapes knit together as a huge crystal – rugged, luminescent and multifaced. This structure, with occasional areas of gleaming colour rises up as a floating mass in space.” – S.A. Krishnan, rpt. in LKC 34, June, 1987, p73 (reprinted from LKC 4, 1966). “I feel there are only two alternatives before everyone of us, in regard to the insurmountable problems before us. Either we have to renounce life and this world and go to the Himalayas or be part of the grand muddle of life as we know it. My own inclination is to go through the phenomenal world which in any case no one can avoid. Then why not accept it with equanimity, this world of maya, and try to sublimate some aspect of experience of life. This is the only tantric basis I have relied upon in my work. I am convinced that pleasure is no sin. In fact, contentment is bliss. Sex is an act of life, and I regard it as a symbol of all desire. And it has been so from times immemorial. Even the Buddha could not quell it in his followers. Indeed sex became taboo; it only went underground and was indulged in secretly. And those who believed in it as a necessary discipline made a secret cult of it. Sex and desire are never regarded as an end in themselves, but a means of self-realisation. It is a questing of knowing, and knowing fully to the point of satiation, before transcending its hold.” – S.A Krishnan, ‘G.R Santosh: Sublimimation of Desire (Drawings by the Artist)’ , Lalit Kala Contemporary-12 & 13, LKA, April-September 1971 122 G.R. Santosh 19 June 1929 – 10 March 1997 Untitled (Early Tantric Period) Oil on canvas, Early 1970s S/d in Devanagari’ Santosh’ l.l. 44.1 x 36.1 in (112.0 x 91.6 cm) Provenance The Osian’s Collection ` 1,000,000 – 2,000,000 US$ 18,180 – 36,360 GBP 12,500 – 25,000