Osian's Auction Catalogue Indian Modern Contemporary Fine Arts | October 2018

118 OSIAN’s – Connoisseurs of Art J. Swaminathan b. 21 June 1928 – d. 25 April 1994 Untitled Mixed media on paper, 1984 13.5 x 21.5 in (34.3 x 54.7 cm) S/d in Devanagari ‘Swaminathan ‘84’ l.r. ` 400,000 – 600,000 $ 5,560 – 8,330 Provenance Acquired by Delhi-based gallerist from Dhoomimal Gallery, India’s first art gallery (estd. 1936). 50 “Because he is whimsical, unpredictable, he paints as a man possessed. His vocabulary is loaded with metaphor as any metaphoric tribal wall; nothing new is consciously attempted, only the fanciful marking representing the mood of the moment is brought into play: automatic scribbling, patterns that cancel out weight against image, smudge against crust, and the crisscrossing doodling game.” K.B. Goel , rpt. in Vadehra Gallery ExC. 1993