GIEVE PATEL | WOMAN WITH TIN HAT

Private collection of Chester & Davida Herwitz

Sotheby's New York, Contemporary Indian Paintings: The Chester and Davida Herwitz Charitable Trust, 12 June 1995, lot 90

Private collection of William Selover, San Francisco

Thence by descent 

TW. Sokolowski, Contemporary Indian Art, exhibition catalogue, Grey Art Gallery, New York University, New York, 1985, illustration p. 79

Throughout his career, Gieve Patel’s simultaneous practice as a doctor, painter, poet, and playwright has created a unique perspective on the urban life in Bombay, the city from which he hails. His paintings very often depict common people in the city. Painting in an expressionist style, Patel has masterfully achieved a fine balance between intimacy and detachment from his subjects.

Reminiscing about the current lots (Lot 64 - 65), Patel notes, “My friend William Selover (Bill) acquired these two works from Sotheby's in 1995, on the occasion of the sale of part of the Chester and Davida Herwitz Family Collection. Bill and I first met in Mumbai (then Bombay) in the early 1960s. We struck up a friendship that lasted till his passing away in 2007. He had a broad vision and was interested in many aspects of the arts. He engaged in many pursuits over the years, one of them being journalism, for the Christian Science Monitor. Bill would often voice a wish to acquire some of my work, and when he heard of the Herwitz sale he showed immediate interest, knowing that the Chester and Davida had some of my best works in their collection. When he saw these two works, he found what he was looking for.

By an interesting coincidence, both these works herald the beginning of an important phase in my career, although they are separated in time by 24 years.

Woman with Tin Hat was painted, in oil, from a very faded newsprint photograph. The fact that the photograph was unclear was a great help to me as a painter - I could imagine transitions, evoke what was not there. I decided to begin the work by painting the entire canvas a uniform dark umber. This became the ground from which I would work, rather than the usual white of the primed canvas. The work then involved bringing things into the light, literally picking up areas that would rise and come out from the night; and, as counterpoint, to let some areas sink in even further into the darkness of the ground. I had almost unwittingly evolved a technique that would stand me in good stead over the next decade! It allowed me to achieve what I was then looking to do -- to create an inward glow, not by use of bright colors, but by carving out light from darkness. The technique suited many of the themes I was then engaged with. Here, the tin begging bowl becomes a sad, ironic, but also triumphant golden crown on the woman's head. And the limp infant she carries is barely discernible as a fore-fronted head peeping out from under her arm.” (Correspondence with the artist, January 2020)