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

G.R. Santosh 19 June 1929 – 10 March 1997 Untitled Oil on canvas, 1971 Signed & dated in English ‘1971’ l.l. 50.2 x 34.3 in (127.5 x 87.0 cm) Provenance The Osian’s Collection ` 2,400,000 – 3,600,000 US$ 40,000 – 60,000 GBP 24,000 – 36,000 “Its I who am decapitated, see! The head pays homage to the feet! Perhaps for this the self was fated. The high and low appears to greet. I’ve slit my throat from side to side. I’m cycling sea and spring of blood. Kali strides from root to bud. What death from Kali will not hide, My friend, behold, what is beside. Blind me with they bliss, but pardon, Lord, When him I fix with shaft of sight. Levitate him in the dark of night Whom I uphold in vision’s rite. What worth are eyes when at the end I cannot find the Atman, and myself, my friend?” (G.R. Santosh’s Kashmiri Couplets, [translated by Richard Bartholomew] rpt. in Gallery Chanakya ExC.1973.) “One of my first problems, when I took up painting again in 1968 after a three year break, was to find a pure image. I went to the image of a nude woman – but I cut off the head, the feet and the hands. Once you have a head, you have an attitude, a personal gesture. I wanted an abstract image. In our tradition we have both geometric and iconographic elements. I try to create a synthesis of the two.” – G.R. Santosh, rpt. in G.R. Santosh – ‘Art is Sublimation’: From a conversation with Ulli Beier, rpt. in Aspect January 1982; p47. 56 LOT 56 REPRESENTS G.R. SANTOSH AT HIS VERY BEST A PIONEERING ARTIST WHO POST LATE-1960S FOCUSED HIS LIFE ON FUSING AND INCORPORATING THE PHILOSOPHICAL AND VISUAL SYMBOLISMS OF TANTRIC THOUGHT AND SYSTEMS INTO INDIAN MODERN ART 132