Hari Ambadas Gade (1917-2001)

Good overall condition. Colors slightly brighter than in catalogue illustration.
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One of the founding members of the Progressive Artists' Group, Hari Ambadas Gade was also one of the first Indian Modernists to experiment with abstract expressionism, together with his close friend Sayed Haider Raza. Unlike Raza or many of the Progressive Artists, Gade spent his life based in India and did not pursue higher art studies in Europe or the United States.

After the dissolution of the PAG in 1954, Gade co-founded the Bombay Group together with KK Hebbar and Shiavax Chavda. Trained as a scientist and mathematician, Gade remained in India throughout his life, and worked as teacher in Bombay and Delhi while continuing to paint. Gade's works were largely inspired by his frequent travel across India, and the artist is best known for his inspired abstracted landscapes and representations of villagers.

The current work is one of Gade's most significant and most ambitious landscapes, the immense size, and vibrant manipulation color exemplifying Gade's mastery as an abstractionist and as a colorist. Regarding color theory, Gade looked to the painterly concerns of the Fauvists In the artist's own words: "The juxtaposition of color, with its emotive functions, is my primary concern; I receive my pictorial experience through color, with all its technical and spatial attributes," (Gade, rpt. Krishnan, Gade, Bombay, 1961).

Built with layers of impasto delivered with broad strokes of the palette knife, Gade's sensuous abstract landscape from 1982 presents the viewer with a study in dynamic color. As in many of his works, Gade's familiar subdued palette of burnt umbers, grey and blue is contrasted against a vivid pop of color.

Dalmia explains: "The subtle shifts of color, particularly in his oil paintings, create a rich texture which irradiates a glow from within ... the somber complementary [colors] that create depth of paint suggesting endless landmass are invoked by Gade, a textured surface that irradiates further to add to its abundant quality," (Dalmia, The Making of Modern Art: The Progressives, Delhi, 2001, p. 179).

Perhaps the least visible member of the Progressive Artists' Group, Gade remains of central importance in the development of the Indian Modernist idiom.