Osian's Auction Catalogue Indian Antiquities Modern Contemporary Fine Arts and Books | April 2017

Lot 73 detail “A leading pioneer of nonrepresentational and nonobjective art in India and on the subcontinent, Nasreen Mohamedi has in the last two decades secured a distinct place within the history of Indian modernism as well as garnered serious attention globally. Quite apart from her contemporaries, many of whom remained invested in the then dominant mainstream discourse that addressed issues of identity and nationalism through the figural-narrative mode, Mohamedi worked against the grain to arrive at an abstract oeuvre of radically pristine drawings and paintings. Her minimal aesthetic drew inspiration from multiple sources, straddling Western modern movements and Islamic culture and succeeding at a harmonious melding of the rational and the poetic, the philosophical and the mystical. Uncompromising, slow to reveal itself (as it was slow to evolve), her art steps out of the formal domain to situate itself in the realm of transcendence. Though admired in her lifetime, she remained enigmatic and elusive, quite the reflection of her work, a distilled oeuvre that does not lend itself to easy comprehension.” – rpt. in Exhibition Brochure (23 September 2015 – 11 January 2016) ‘Nasreen Mohamedi: Waiting Is A Part of Intense Living’ Museo Nacional Centro De Arte Reina Sofia. 2015-16.