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

36 Biren De (1926 – 2011) Untitled Oil on canvas, 1961 S/d ‘BIREN DE 1961’ on verso 34.1 x 24.0 in (86.5 x 61.0 cm) Provenance Purchased directly from the artist in 1962 by Dhoomimal Art Gallery. INR 600,000 – 900,000 USD 9,375 – 14,063 Biren’s ideas about nature, the spirit of man and Biren’s comprehension of the mystery of life seem to become fused in this mature, full period. He removed a great deal of the structural apparatus thus exploring bravely the sense of space. His paintings became a structure of full strokes (and movement) of colour in space. Each stroke is a search for significance and resembles a kind of meteoring memory… These new works, the production of the past year, are further resolutions of the same principle of composition. Landscape and men become one. Little complexes of impasto, burnished over with paint, give the bold brushstrokes a sense of buoyancy. Great volumes of cloud and mist billow over and form the backdrop to these ideographs. There is the impression of movement, and yet there is stillness. The strokes are solid – built like bars of music spanning sensation. One can imagine the Santhal landscape translated into these aggregate symbols… But one can also imagine the sense of pilgrimage and of deliverance in the cascade of forms sliding past great arenas of silence. Richard Bartholomew in Biren De : Kunika Art Centre 1961 ExC. detail