Osian's Auction Catalogue Indian Modern Fine Arts | June 2017

39 # * K.G. Subramanyan (1924 – 2016) Untitled Oil on canvas, c.1965 Signed in Tamil ‘Mani’ l.l. 24.0 x 30.1 in (61.0 x 76.5 cm) Provenance Acquired from Christie’s New York 2006 Auction by Osian’s Connoisseurs of Art. Illustrative Reference Colour illustration of same series rpt. in Rudrangshu Mukherjee (Editor). Art of Bengal: A Vision Defined 1955-1975. Kolkata: Centre of International Modern Art, 2002. p.131. (8187977027) Exhibition Reference Exhibited at Lalit Kala Akademi INR 1,000,000 – 1,500,000 USD 15,625 – 23,438 “It seems as though Subramanyan needed to free himself from the overwrought culture of oil painting as it is practised in Europe and to take on the boldness of the Americans. The framing and compactness of the easel picture had, as we have noted, always troubled Subramanyan. The first step was to allow the formal iconicity of the image to disintegrate; now he broke up his own mode of ornamental clustering as well. In the polyptychs the image is fragmented, repeated, serialised. These are in a sense murals miniaturised, or rather, they transpose the values of the one upon the other to subvert in the bargain the easel format. In describing genres I have already mentioned that Subramanyan’s Windows suggest a cartoon strip narration; they help the viewer to take the imagery ironically. This is not only by way of the thematic aspect of voyeurism but by a trick of design: by alternating figurative and nonfigurative elements in equal measure; by variegating negative and positive shapes; by shifting the horizon line in each window-space to provide different viewing angles into an interior, the goings-on in which have been abbreviated to mock signs and bring the narrative sequence to naught.” Geeta Kapur rpt. in When was Modernism: Essays on Contemporary Culture Practice in India. New Delhi: Tulika Books, 2000. p.122. (8185229147) Indian Modern Fine Arts | 99