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Bikash Bhattacharjee’s paintings are hyper‒realistic in their execution of
technical details and colour, and on close inspection, are unsettling. In
the present lot, the innocent reverie of a small boy is juxtaposed against
an immense pockmarked landscape with an isolated house barely visible
over the horizon. Trails of barbed wire, and an extreme close‒up of part
of a built structure add a menacing tone. Detailed, almost impressionistic
rendition of shrubbery in the foreground manages to convey beauty as
well as discomfort. Writing about similar works from the 1970s through
the 1990s, Manasij Majumder says that such paintings “give one some
idea of the artist’s own childhood even if these canvases are not entirely
autobiographical... Bikash has always cherished the memories of his growing
up as a boy, under the loving care of his widowed mother, dogged no doubt
by a sense of insecurity, loneliness and poverty.” (Manasij Majumder,
Close to
Events: Works of Bikash Bhattacharjee
,
New Delhi: Niyogi Books, 2007, p. 200)
PROPERTY OF A DISTINGUISHED LADY, MUMBAI
34
BIKASH BHATTACHARJEE
(1940 ‒ 2006)
Untitled
Signed and dated 'Bikash 72' (lower left)
1972
Oil on canvas
69.75 x 57.75 in (177 x 146.7 cm)
Rs 45,00,000 ‒ 65,00,000
$ 71,430 ‒ 103,175
PROVENANCE
Acquired directly from the artist
Private Collection, East India