Osian's Auction Catalogue Indian Antiquities and Modern and Contemporary Fine Arts | June 2015

LOTS 52 TO 55 REPRESENT ARTWORKS BY FOUR LEADING MEMBERS OF THE CALCUTTA PAINTERS GROUP NIKHIL BISWAS, RABIN MONDAL, GOPAL SANYAL & PROKASH KARMAKAR . A BRILLIANT PEN & INK DRAWING BY THE INSPIRATIONAL AND INFLUENTIAL CALCUTTA BORN ARTIST - NIKHIL BISWAS, LEADING FOUNDER LIGHT OF THE CALCUTTA PAINTERS AND SOCIETY OF CONTEMPORARY ARTISTS “But, Nikhil’s sweet nostalgia disappeared. He said, ‘The picturesque, almost idyllic world of my boyhood days was shattered one day. I could see similarities of events I read or heard about with the ones I had experienced. I will never forget the overcrowded train we took on our way to Majdiah during the War and frightened faces of those fleeing from the city. Just the other day, I was reading a reminiscence of a survivor. He describes how the Gestapo had herded Jewish people into goods trains, packed them in like sardines and sent them off to the concentration camps like Nikhil Biswas 22 April 1930 – 10 November 1966 Untitled Pen, brush and ink on paper pased on masonite board, 1960 S/d in English ‘Nikhl 60’ l.l. 30.3 x 39.8 in (77.0 x 101.0 cm) Provenance The Osian’s Collection ` 600,000 – 900,000 US$ 10,000 – 15,000 GBP 6,000 – 9,000 Full image on pp. 122-123 Belsen.Think of the slave ships from Africa and Asia during the Western dominance. These are certain underlying themes I have tried to explore in my mature works. Artists of my generation, some of them at least, had gone through the same kind of social circumstances that I experienced and their works show the same set of concerns. Their search for apt imagery and form are similar to mine.” – Sandip Sarkar quoted and reprinted in [BKC, 2010]. The passion of Nikhil Biswas. Ahmedabad: Mapin Publishing for Prashant Tulsyan 2010; pp.57,59 52 126