Gulam Rasool Santosh (1929 - 1997)

Good overall condition. Very small, square abrasions along lower left and lower right edges, perhaps from a previous frame. Gray border slightly darker and less silver than in catalogue illustration.
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.

Artists have their epiphanies–and that for G. R. Santosh can be traced back to a journey that he undertook out of, perhaps, curiosity, but which changed his painterly and personal life. From an experience that can only be explained as mystical, Santosh turned his exploratory journey as an artist into an inward looking process that would result in the revitalisation of the ancient Indian art of tantra.

An extraordinary colourist despite being self-taught, Santosh was fortunate to come under the tutelage of the modernist painter N. S. Bendre, who successfully steered him away from the landscapes he painted for tourists, to paint expressive figurative, and later, abstract paintings–in itself a passage that only a prolific and confident artist could steer in so short a time. His figurative expressions were evocative of his love for his native Kashmir, but shared common ground with Indian artists grappling with a similar, cubism-derived language at the time. In renouncing it in favour of his supremely poised and sophisticated abstraction, Santosh proved himself a changeling. But the bigger surprise was the creation of a new vocabulary for tantric art, based on geometrical abstraction, which was to prove his crowning achievement–a joyful synthesis of ancient symbols that took on a modernist idiom in the capable hands of a master rooted in the traditional philosophy of the land.

Kishore Singh