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49
AKBAR PADAMSEE
(b. 1928)
a) Untitled
Signed and dated 'PADAMSEE 95' (upper left)
1995
Charcoal on paper
14.5 x 10 in (37 x 27 cm)
b) Untitled
Signed and dated 'PADAMSEE 1970' (upper left)
1970
Charcoal on paper
11.25 x 7.75 in (29 x 20 cm)
c) Untitled
Signed and dated 'PADAMSEE 95' (upper left)
1995
Charcoal on paper
10.5 x 14.5 in (27 x 37 cm)
d) Untitled
Signed and dated 'PADAMSEE 96' (upper right)
1996
Charcoal on paper
14.5 x 10.5 in (37 x 27 cm)
$ 4,000 ‒ 5,000
Rs 2,56,000 ‒ 3,20,000
(Set of four)
ab
c
d
48
RAMESHWAR BROOTA
(b. 1941)
Untitled
Signed and dated in Devnagari (lower left)
1967
Oil on canvas
23.75 x 34 in (60.5 x 86.5 cm)
$ 25,000 ‒ 35,000
Rs 16,00,000 ‒ 22,40,000
PROVENANCE:
Acquired from Triveni Kala Sangam, New Delhi in 1973
Rameshwar Broota’s paintings from the late‒sixties began
to depart from classic portraiture to figures of labourers
in urban settings, based on personal observations.
“Broota had already moved away from the thick impasto
of his early portraits to a condensed narration, his tall
canvases now filled with larger‒than‒life figures of
laborers, minutely capturing the last surviving shreds of
life existing in their weathered bodies and tense muscles.
He was thus representing the neglected and marginalised
with heroic dimensions, poetic justice if you like. Their
elongated limbs and brooding postures, rendered
Broota’s anguish and indignation in an expressive style.
In their pictorial treatment, he thinned down the oil
paint and its consistency to get a watercolor like effect,
creating a transparency that made the painted bodies of
the deprived lose their weight and fleshiness. The paled
skin tones... came to represent the anemic condition of
his protagonists.” (Roobina Karode,
Visions of Interiority:
Interrogating the Male Body
, New Delhi: Kiran Nadar
Museum of Art, 2014, online)
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