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

18 George Keyt (1901 – 1993) Thresher Woman Watercolour on paper, 1943 S/d ‘G Keyt 43’ t.l. 28.0 x 17.2 in (71.0 x 43.8 cm) Provenance Acquired directly from the artist George Keyt by L.N. Sevak (1919-1999) who was appointed the Head of the Art Department of the National Textile Corporation, Sri Lanka during the 1960s where he struck up a friendship with George Keyt and acquired a few works from him. Thereafter, acquired from L.N. Sewak by Subhash Shah, Ahmedabad, the Former Director of the Leila & Purushottam Hutheesing Visual Art Centre during the late1990s. Illustrative Reference Colour illustration of same series rpt. in R. de. L. Furtado (Author). Three Painters: Amrita Sher-Gil, George Keyt & M. F. Husain. New Delhi: Dhoomimal Ramchand, 1960. Plate 27. INR 600,000 – 900,000 USD 9,375 – 14,063 “Then came the Nayika series (Plate 27). These pictures are an admirable blend of modern art with Ceylon’s folk tradition. Keyt has succeeded in creating charming, luminous pictures with a singular stained glass effect. The deliberate simplification, redolent of an almost primitive boldness, is in reality a highly complex expression of an elemental theme. One can almost visualise the fury and the delight of the artist as he went on snatching something out of the rainbow to create those beautiful Nayikas.” R. de. L. Furtado rpt. in Three Painters: Amrita Sher-Gil, George Keyt & M. F. Husain. New Delhi: Dhoomimal Ramchand, 1960. p.21. Illustrative Reference from the Same Series as Lot 18 George Keyt Marg 1950; Pl. Nos.71-4 ‘The ‘Nayika’ series of paintings illustrates something which is possible in India and Ceylon but not possible in most of Western Europe and America – the fusion of art and folk art… The two forms of art – Art with a capital A and folk art – nourish each other. An exceptional man of the people will contribute to Art, and some artists will achieve the dignity, simplicity and gaiety which usually characterize folk art. Not for one moment should the reader suppose that Keyt was bothered by thoughts of this kind when he painted the series of portraits now known by the generic term Nayika. What we see, however, in these portraits is a subtle disturbance of his normal classical rhythms, a disturbance which evokes the atmosphere of the village in its most poetic form. It is the poetry of love, almost the poetry of infatuation. These pictures are the paintings of intimacy, and this intimacy lends to these paintings a quality which many have recognized, the quality of being sacred. Martin Russell rpt. in George Keyt Marg 1950; p53. The Progressive Artists Group. First row: (sitting, from left) Dr. Mulk Raj Anand, Siloo Bharucha, Mrs. Renu Khanna, K.H. Ara, M.F. Husain, Bal Chhabda, Unidenti ed, Hazarnis (with folder in hand). Second row: (sitting, from left) Unidenti ed, L.N. SEVAK , Laxman Pai, Kathy Langhammer, E. Schlesinger. Standing: (from left) Unidenti ed, Mrs. Kekoo Gandhy, T.A. Schinzel (behind Gandhy), Krishen Khanna (in striped tie), Sadanand Bakre (in glasses, just behind Khanna), D.G. Kulkarni (in glasses, near Bakre), Gaitonde (to Kulkarni’s left), A.A. Amelkar, Unidenti ed, Tyeb Mehta, Shiavax Chavda (hands folded in front), Prof. Langhammer (dark tie), Kekoo Gandhy, Manishi Dey. Shah introducing the artist Chakor during the opening of his exhibition of cartoon and caricatures at HVAC. Seated on the far right is the poet and educationalist Umashankar Joshi who inaugurated the show (1983). Property from the Collection of Subhash Shah, First Director of the Leila & Purushottam Hutheesing Visual Art Centre Indian Modern Fine Arts | 53