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

32 Bikash Bhattacharjee (1940 – 2006) Portrait and Anatomy Position Study Pastel on paper, c.1964 31.9 x 21.2 in (81.1 x 53.8 cm) Provenance Acquired directly from Artist’s Family Collection. Illustrative Reference Colour illustration of same series rpt. in Close to Events: Works of Bikash Bhattacharjee . New Delhi: Niyogi Books, 2007. p.64. (9788189738242) INR 800,000 – 1,200,000 USD 12,500 – 18,750 These pastels done mostly in the final years at his art college in the live classes or elsewhere are works of no mere trainee artist of promise and talent. Rather they look as studies that an accomplished painter does before launching a major project…For Bikash women are in general neither ugly nor beautiful in terms of curves and contours of flesh… The artist views the front of him as an engaging individual, a personality and a character. She poses often in a quiet posture conscious of the artist’s scouring eye. But she is totally unaware that her naked or draped body also contours a personality, even a life or a story, which the artist’s gaze explores with his searching visual insight without letting her guess a whit about it. Manasij Majumder rpt in Bikash Bhattacharjee: Early Drawings 22 September – 19 October 2002 ExC Galerie 88. Indian Modern Fine Arts | 83