The arts fraternity picks its most Iconic works

The arts fraternity picks its most Iconic works

Business Standard / New Delhi May 02, 2009, 0:47 IST

ARUN VADHERA
The Delhi-based gallerist with an M F Husain, Tyeb Mehta and Arpita Singh in his office, picks India’s most important works

M F Husain
Between the Spider and the Lamp
Medium: Oil on canvas
Year: 1956
Collection: Artist

Tyeb Mehta
Shantiniketan Triptych
Medium: Oil on canvas
Year: 1985
Collection: NGMA

F N Souza
Crucifixion
Medium: Oil on board
Collection: Tate, London

S H Raza
Maa
Medium: Acrylic on canvas
Year: 1990s
Collection: Initially with Amrita Jhaveri & Chris Davidge

V S Gaitonde
Untitled (yellowish brown)
Medium: Oil on canvas
Year: 1971
Collection: NGMA

 

Ram Kumar
Sad Town
Medium: Oil on canvas
Year: 1956
Collection: Artist
A turning point for him — the emerging landscape was a foretaste of his Benares landscapes — and it also marked his lifelong preoccupation with the underdogs of society

Akbar Padamsee
Orange Nude
Collection: NGMA

A Ramachandran
Yayati (three sections)
Medium: Oil on canvas
Year: 1984
Collection: E Alkazi

Rameshwar Broota
Neither Grief, Nor Rage, Nor Disgust
Medium: Oil on canvas, scraped with blade
Year: 2001
Collection: Jane & Kito DeBoer
A monumental work in which he uses the face of art critic Keshav Malik to talk of the conflicts before the common man. And observe the blade-scraping technique which gives it a sculptural quality

Arpita Singh
Mahabharata
Medium: Oil on canvas
Year: 2006
Collection: Vadehra Art Gallery
With this, her latest painting, Arpita Singh can be compared with Tyeb Mehta, who blossomed in his last 20 years as an artist. Arpita has blossomed in the last 10 years of her life. The work reveals her interest in archaeology and concern for the contemporary world

Bhupen KhakHar
You Can’t Please Them All
Medium: Oil on canvas

Gulammohammed Sheikh
Kaavad: Travelling Shrine: Home
Collection: Artist

Ganesh Pyne
Assassin
Medium: Tempera on canvas
Year: 1979
Collection: Jane & Kito DeBoer

Jogen Chowdhury
Life II/The Blue Sari
Medium: Ink and pastel
Year: 1976 Collection: NGMA

Somnath Hore
The Hanging
Medium: Bronze

Meera Mukherjee
Ashoka at Kalinga
Medium: Bronze
Year: 1976
Collection: ITC Maurya Sheraton

NEVILLE TULI
Auctioneer, arts impresario and institution-builder, Tuli keeps in mind India’s impressive art history

Jogen Chowdhury
Life II
Medium: Ink and pastel
Year: 1976
Collection: NGMA
Brilliant, unique imagery. Defines the iconicity of the heaviness of being Indian in a most universal context

Tyeb Mehta
Kali
Medium: Acrylic on canvas
Year: 1997
Collection: Nitin Bhayana
Iconicity redefined, from ancient to modern, local to universal, colour and form dissolves all other connotations

Jamini Roy
Crucifixion
Medium: Tempera on handmade cardboard
Year: Mid 1950s
To take a universal subject, from which you are removed, and transform it into something uniquely your own. It clearly defines Indian modernism in the best sense. Even the violence is transformed into a joyous non-violence

Chittaprosad
Bangladesh War
Medium: Oil on paper
Year: 1972
Collection:
No other artist represented the artist’s social and political responsibility with the same ethical and aesthetic integrity

J Swaminath
Perception Series
Medium: Oil on canvas
Year: 1972
Collection:
Colour, form, imagination aspiring towards that higher sense of the spiritual; unique imagery

Bhupen Khakhar
Factory Strike
Medium: Oil on canvas
Year: 1971
Collection:
Khakhar at his passionately-detached best V S Gaitonde
Untitled
Medium: Oil on canvas
Year: 1972
Collection:
The contemplative process-driven joy of Gaitonde best reflects our iconic universality

M F Husain
Karbala: Civilisation Series
Medium: Acrylic on canvas
Year: 1990
Collection:
So many horses could be chosen, this reflects his restless energy as any other great series he decided to sweep through

K C S Paniker
Word and Symbol Series
Medium: Oil on canvas
Year: 1968
The most passionate attempt to redefine the line into a decorative Indian modernism

G R Santosh
Untitled
Medium: Watercolour
Year: 1971
Collection:
Again, only in India could such an iconic fusion of science, geometry, eroticism and spirituality emerge.

Wasim Kapoor
Captive Series
Medium: Oil on canvas
Year: 1981
Collection:
A unique image that could represent a hundred countries, but only dared to be created with joy in India

Nandalal Bose
Siva Drinking the World’s Poison
Medium: Line wash and watercolour on paper
Year: 1933
Collection:
A pivotal work defining an Indian modernism. One version in the Osian's Archive & Library Collection, another in the NGMA Collection

Biren De
Genesis
Medium: Oil on canvas
Year: 1978
Collection:
Few understood energy, the power and force of representing that energy on canvas as did De in his early works

Ravi Varma
Lakshmi
Medium: Oil on canvas
Year: 1890s
Collection:
If one artist can be blamed for influencing the aesthetic sensibility of a nation, then Ravi Varma is he. Most eyes can no longer perceive any of our gods without their sari, such is his stifling iconic effect.

THE BEST OF NGMA
Director Rajeev Lochan picks out seminal works from the gallery

S H Raza
Untitled
Medium: Aquatint
Year: 1983
Akin to music, Raza’s image can express various moods, known and unknown, leading to the highest spiritual experience

Manjit Bawa
Jogen
Medium: Oil on canvas
The cause of non-violence and peaceful co-existence of all beings is reflected in Manjit’s work. His treatment of form is tonal, embodying contours in the cosmic space

Subodh Gupta
Three Cows
Medium: Oil on canvas
Year: 2003
Subodh works with his favourite subject, migration. This large canvas is an insightful tribute to India’s constantly changing society, using analogies from common life

M F Husain
Mother Teresa
Medium: Oil on canvas
Year: 1988
In this painting, Husain devised a more complex imagery through which he expressed the contradictory pulls of youth and age, of morality and new life. There is the over-arching figure of the compassionate mother drawing opposing elements within her.

K G Subramanyan
Malva Nights
Medium: Gouches oil on acrylic sheet
Subramanyan’s works culminate in the starkly macabre and sensual figures of the terracotta reliefs that, perhaps unintentionally, articulate the enlarging differences between society and sociability, desire and perception. They also create a mosaic that links the isolating moments of our past with present day cultural practices

Ram Kinker Baij
Rabindranath Tagore
Medium: Bronze
Ram Kinker added to the romantic view of the world a deep sense of social commitment. He celebrated the human spirit and experimented with forms, laying the foundation of contextual modernism

Amrita Sher-Gil
Brahmcharis
Year: 1930s
Medium: Oil on canvas
Amrita’s figuration carries a hint of monumentality in the arrangement of the elongations. The variations in rich brown shin tones and the dramatic use of a dazzling white not often encountered in European oils show her readiness to experiment

Jitish Kallat
Naked Skyline — Porus Air
Medium: Oil in canvas
Jitish’s works juxtapose the traditional symbol with abstract, photocopied representations. His images evolve out of texts and captions, well-known phrases and popular song titles. The relationship between words, images, tradition and contemporary symbols, is central

Tyeb Mehta
Shantiniketan Triptych
Medium: Oil on canvas
Year: 1986
Tyeb’s involvement is with the utilisation of the conscious senses, of distortion of humanistic pain that is observed in our times. The diagonals contribute by charging the space with passion, certainly rendered and formalised, to evoke an eerie silence

Raja Ravi Varma
A Woman Holding A Fruit
Medium: Oil on canvas
Year: 1890s
Ravi Verma was one of the first artists to conceive and establish a truly pan-Indian style that drew upon the popularity of Western technique and Western realism. His subject matters ranged from representational and contextual mythology to folklore and also a representation of royalty of the time

V S Gaitonde
Untitled (yellowish brown)
Medium: Oil on canvas
Year: 1971
There’s a lot of surface activity in the field of colour: Tension between the horizontal and the vertical, between the amorphous and amoeboid, and detailed texturing — a scratched -out squiggle here, a minute form there

ASHISH ANAND
The founder of Delhi Art Gallery draws up his list of iconic art

Raja Ravi Varma
Lakshmi
Medium: Oil on canvas
Year: 1890s
Collection: Gaekwad family, Baroda

M F Husain
Zameen and Man
Medium: Oil on canvas
Year: 1955
Collection: NGMA

Ram kinker Baij
Santhal Family Sculpture
Medium: Concrete
Collection: Kala Bhavan, Santiniketan
Considered the first public, modernist sculpture in India, it depicts a family from the Santhal tribe, father, mother, child and dog, carrying their few worldly possessions with them to a new life

Nandlal Bose
Haripura Posters
Medium: Tempera on paper
Year: 1937 and 1938
Collection: NGMA

Chittaprosad
Bengal Famine Series
Medium: Brush and ink on paper
Year: 1940s

F N Souza
Death of the Pope
Medium: Oil on canvas
Year: 1962
Collection: Tate, London

Amrita Sher-Gil
The Bride’s Toilet
Medium: Oil on canvas
Year: 1938
Collection: NGMA

V S Gaitonde
Untitled (yellowish brown)
Medium: Oil on canvas
Year: 1971
Collection: NGMA

Tyeb Mehta
Celebration
Medium: Oil on canvas
Year: 1985
Collection: Private collection

Jamini Roy
Mother and Child
Medium: Tempera on mount board

S H Raza
Maa (Laut Kar Jab Aoonga)
Medium: Acrylic on canvas
Collection: Bal Chhabda and M F Husain

DINESH VAZIRANI
The Saffronart founder lists out his top picks for iconic art

Amrita Sher-gil
The Bride’s Toilet
Medium: Oil on canvas
Year: 1938
Collection: NGMA

S H Raza
Maa
Medium: Acrylic on canvas
Collection: Private

S H Raza
Satpura
Medium: Acrylic on canvas 
b Private

S H Raza
Tapovan
Medium: Acrylic on canvas
Collection: Private

M F Husain
Battle of Ganga and Jamuna, Mahabharata 12
Medium: Oil on canvas, diptych
Year: 1971
Collection: Originally from the Chester and Davida Herwitz collection

Rameshwar Broota
Numbers
Medium: Oil on canvas

Arpita Singh
Whatever Is Here

F N Souza
Birth
Medium: Oil on canvas
Collection: Tina Ambani

F N Souza
Man and Woman Laughing
Medium: Oil on masonite
Collection: Private

M F Husain
Between the Spider and the Lamp
Medium: Oil on board
Year: 1956
Collection: Artist

Akbar Padamsee
Lovers
Year: 1953
Collection: Private collection
When this work was exhibited, the artist was arrested on charges of obscenity. The judge, however, ruled against the injunction and upheld the artist’s freedom to paint nudes without fear of charges of pornography

Tyeb Mehta
Mahishasura
Medium: Oil on canvas
Collection: Masonori Fukuoka

Bhupen Khakhar
You Can’t Please Them All
Medium: Oil on canvas
Year: 1982
Collection: Tate, Lodon

Subodh Gupta
Very Hungry God
Medium: Stainless steel kitchen utensils
Year: 2006
Collection: The Francois Pinault collection

Atul Dodiya
Mirage
Collection: Sold by Sotheby’s

Ravinder Reddy
Radha 2007
Medium: Fibreglass
Year: 2007
Collection: Sold by Saffronart to a private collector

Atul Dodiya
Three Painters
Collection: Malvinder and Shivinder Singh

Bharti Kher
The Skin Speaks a Language Not Its Own
Medium: Bindis on fibreglass

Surendran Nair
Doctrine of the Forest: An Actor at Play (Cuckoonebulopolis)
Medium: Oil on canvas
Collection: Sold by Saffronart to a private collector

Surendran Nair
An Actor Rehearsing the Interior Monologue of Icarus
Medium: Oil on canvas
This work was pulled down from an exhibition in New Delhi for allegedly offending patriotic sensibilities

T V Santhosh
When Your Target Cries for Mercy
Medium: Oil on canvas
Collection: Sold by Saffronart to a private collector

Jitish Kallat
Autosaurus Tripous
Medium: Fibreglass
Year: 2007

ARVIND VIJAYMOHAN
Art advisor Vijaymohan follows a simple formula while coming up with his list: top-of-the-mind recall. The works are definitive of each artist’s oeuvre

V S Gaitonde
Untitled
Medium: Oil and mixed media on canvas
Year: 1975
Collection: Appeared in the Christie’s Modern and Contemporary Indian Art sale in 2006
Gaitonde is among the most powerful artists and this work is probably the his finest. With its complex, multilayered forms and rich, earthy palette, it offers a portal to an undiscovered, ethereal and spiritual realm — ever-expanding and impossible to fully unravel

Subodh Gupta
Very Hungry God
Medium: Stainless steel kitchen utensils
Year: 2006
Collection: The François Pinault Collection
Created in reaction to reports that French soup kitchens were using pork as an ingredient to deter Muslims from partaking in the meals, this was a breakthrough piece. It turned the world’s attention on Gupta. The sight of this stunning object during the Nuit Blanche (an annual all-night cultural festival in Paris) was unforgettable. This work was seared into our collective memory following its placement on the Grand Canal in front of super-collector François Pinault’s Palazzo Grassi during the Venice Biennale

Amrita Sher-Gil
Three Girls
Medium: Oil on canvas
Year: 1935
Collection: NGMA
Three Girls is special as it belongs to a period and body which mark a discovery of Sher-Gil’s own expression — a shift from the trained to a personal language. The demeanour of resignation and repressed expressio