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

Jamini Roy 11 April 1887 – 24 April 1972 The Last Supper Tempera on cloth pasted on cardboard, Late 1940s Signed in bengali ‘Jamini Roy’ l.r. 12.0 x 30.3 in (30.5 x 77.0 cm) Provenance Property of a Corporate Collector, Mumbai ` 1,200,000 – 1,800,000 US$ 20,000 – 30,000 GBP 12,000 – 18,000 National Art Treasure Non-Exportable Item Full image on pp. 84-85 “…it cannot be denied that he [Jamini Roy] has introduced into these portraits [of Christ] a new tenderness and a quality of intense homeliness which neither the Byzantine, with his abstract intensity and other-worldly mysticism, nor the humanist painter, with his essentially human conception of Christ, had ever quite captured. In particular, one can find a close parallel between Jamini Roy’s studies of Christ and the anonymous French folk-painters of the 12th century whom Gauguin copied. Whilst subordinating the structure of the face, to decorative rhythm, the artist, in both cases, depends on isolated facial features (the eyes, the mouth and the beard) to convey a quality of homeliness and human warmth.” – Bishnu Dey and John Irwin rpt. in [BOOK.bkq, 1944]. Dey, Bishnu and Irwin, John Jamini Roy (Author’s), Jamini Roy. Calcutta: Indian Society of Oriental Art 1944; pp.26 “The very nature of Jamini Roy’s work precludes a generality of appeal. He cannot be easily appraised by laymen, particularly as the entire trend in his life,both as an artist and as a man, has been in the direction of evading popular approval. At the same time, together with Nandalal Bose, he has been enthusiastically admired and discussed by those who are interested in the handicraft of painting and in the forms of our cultural renaissance. He is pre- eminently an artist’s painter… His pursuit so undauntedly followed, is after expressive form shorn of uncoordinated irrelevancies, a seeking like Cézanne’s, after the inherent idea of the object distilled from its concreteness… No artist in India of our day has been so obstinately and consistently obsessed with the fundamental problems of art.” – Shahid Suhrawardy rpt. in [BOOK.mag/ BOOK.ess, 1947-48]. Suhrawardy, Shahid: Jamini Roy. “Marg: A Magazine of Architecture and Art”. Bombay: Marg Vol.2 (1).1949; pp.68-9. “The patua paints his pictures directly on paper, whilst Jamini Roy works mostly on canvas, the ground being prepared in two ways: with ordinary clay overlaid with a coating of white clay mixed with tamarind glue, or with an amber-coloured clay mixed with lime-stone (ghuti).” – Ibid. pp.75 “His art started a trend not only in the fine art but also in illustration, design and applied art. The discovery of folk art and revival of handicrafts is one of the major achievements of our time, but we owe to Jamini Roy the vision to reconsider the values of folk art and to incorporate it in contemporary work something of its vitality, gaiety and innocence.” – Jaya Appasamy (Text by). Jamini Roy: A Homage. “Lalit Kala Contemporary”; pp.21 rpt. in [BOOK.mag/ BOOK.ess, 1985]. Mukhopadhyay, Amit (Text by). The Art Situation Before 1940. “Lalit Kala Contemporary 32”. New Delhi: Lalit Kala Akademi; pp.27 AN IMPORTANT JAMINI ROY ‘LAST SUPPER’ PAINTING FROM THE ICONIC CHRIST SERIES 32 86