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PROPERTY FROM AN IMPORTANT
FAMILY COLLECTION, DELHI
29
BHUPEN KHAKHAR
(1934 ‒ 2003)
Untitled
Reverse painting in acrylic on glass
44.25 x 39.5 in (112.5 x 100.5 cm)
Rs 2,50,00,000 ‒ 3,50,00,000
$ 396,830 ‒ 555,560
PROVENANCE
Acquired directly from the artist
Collection of Dr. and Mrs. B V Doshi
Christie's, Mumbai, 19 December 2013, lot 80
Bhupen Khakhar made a declaration in 1978: “Human
beings in their local environment, climate, provincial
society; this should be the ultimate goal of the artist.”
(Timothy Hyman,
Bhupen Khakhar
, Mumbai: Chemould
Publication and Arts and Ahmedabad: Mapin Publishing
Pvt. Ltd., 1998, p. 78) The present lot, painted around the
same time, depicts an imagined landscape portraying its
entire topography as a linear map, with land, sky and water
body all merging into one plane. At the centre is a cluster of
temples, connecting to individual households and private
scenes—narrative vignettes that Khakhar often utilised in
his paintings. Similarly, floating figures in the air and river
are figurative elements typical of Khakhar’s later works.
The present lot once belonged in the personal collection
of the renowned architect, Dr. Balkrishna Doshi. Doshi met
Khakhar in the 1980s and invited him to do a solo show
at the Kanoria Centre for Arts and Hutheesing Visual Arts
Centre in Ahmedabad. He wrote about why this painting
appealed to him then: “Amongst the exhibits, I noticed
an unusual narrative painted on glass. I was struck by the
comprehensive way in which it depicted the entire life of
a peninsula... Bhupen had transformed the well‒structured
traditional narration of the traditional Nathadwara
pichhwai style of painting into a free‒wheeling architectural
landscape. I saw, in it, a young‒newly married couple
flying in the sky, overlooking the countryside: a village
with temples, canteens, houses and meandering streets
surrounded by river and a bridge... Though freely dispersed,
they appear to connect around their motherland, narrating
stories, associations of timeless, ongoing life.”
This is an unusual Khakhar work with an architectural focus
on bringing the life of the city to the fore. Built forms such as
buildings and bridges are treated on equal par with natural
elements such as trees and the river. The combination of
fluid paint and linear detailing makes this a rare work in
Khakhar’s oeuvre.