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

Ramkinkar Baij 25 May 1906 – 2 August 1980 Portrait Terracotta, nd Initialled in English ‘RK’ l.r. on back side 4.7 x 4.0 x 3.7 in (12.0 x 10.2 x 9.3 cm) Provenance Private Collection, Santiniketan ` 600,000 – 900,000 US$ 10,000 – 15,000 GBP 6,000 – 9,000 “Individual as Ramkinkar’s painting is, and full of variety, his sculpture is even more distinctive. It makes him, without controversy, the first major figure in modern Indian sculpture. Sculptors before his time were largely professionals tied to the strings of patronage; however original and competent some of them were, they were too constrained by the patron’s taste and specifications. So Ramkinkar was probably the first sculptor on the Indian art scene whom you can designate a ‘creative sculptor’; he sculpted for his own pleasure and did not cater to a patron’s whims. In fact, his few attempts at doing commissioned works brought him close to disaster; he had to leave them to be completed by assistants...His brilliant portraits - heads and busts - some of the most dynamic in recent times, were not commissioned; he did them because he liked the subject for one reason or the other. Exposed as he was, to the works of Rodin and Epstein, he showed a greater range of formal invention, and when he painted portraits he transformed each sitter into a special icon with a distinct emotional aura. One has only to compare his portrait heads of Ganguly Moshai, Preet Pande, Meera Chatterjee, Madhura Singh, Ira Vakil and Rabindranath... we will not easily again come upon another artist of comparable genius or character, a man who had enormous gifts but never aired them, who was singleminded in his work but treated results with philosophic unconcern. He did not belong to a world that resounds with the squabble for success, fame and money. He was singularly unworldly and capricious, lived like an ascetic and had no desire for creature comforts, and his great zest for life was satisfied with the free gifts of nature - like the smell of the earth and the light of the sky and the vision of an animated nature...” – K.G. Subramanyan rpt. in [BOOK.bkc/ BOOK.ess, 2007]. K.G. Subramanyan: ‘Ramkinkar and His Works’. “Ramkinkar Vaij: Sculptures”. New Delhi:Tulika Books in association with Kotak Mahindra Bank; pp.199-200. A RARE TERRACOTTA HEAD STUDY BY THE PIONEERING MODERNIST MASTER SCULPTOR RAMINKAR BAIJ 31 82