Bikash Bhattacharjee

Chester and Davida Herwitz Family Collection

Houston, Contemporary Arts Museum, Epic Reality - Contemporary Narrative Painting for India, 3 October - 16 November 1997

Salem, Peabody Essex Museum, Timeless Visions: Contemporary Art of India from the Chester and Davida Herwitz Collection, 1999

Bean, S., Timeless Visions: Contemporary Art of India from the Chester and Davida Herwitz Collection, Salem, 1999, p. 74 illus.

Jhaveri, A., A Guide to 101 Modern and Contemporary Indian Artists, Mumbai, 2005, p. 21 illus.

Majumder, M., Close to Events: Works of Bikash Bhattacharjee, New Delhi, 2007, p.158 illus.

Friis-Hansen, D., Epic Reality – Contemporary Narrative Painting for India, Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston, 2007, p. 3 and 19

This work is in good condition.
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Throughout his career, Indian Surrealist Bikash Bhattacharjee was particularly known for his depiction of middle-class Bengali women. This painting is a contemporary representation of the goddess Durga seated on her vehicle the lion/tiger dawon. 'On the Tiger, 1979, exists in a dark and hazy nether time, with the voluptuous, grinning, red-eyed goddess riding atop a noble tigress.' (Dana Friis-Hansen, Epic Reality -Contemporary Narrative Painting from India, Texas, 1997, p. 5). As in a number of his canvases, Bhattacharjee has combined technical mastery with elements of the surreal and hyper-real. He eerily alters the colouring of the eyes and lips, creating an intensity and element of uneasiness. The haunting quality present in many of Bhattacharjee's canvases was achieved by his ability to dramatically alter light and texture.  'Undefined (perhaps indefinable) emotion and an indirect (often inscrutable) method of allusion are conveyed through a slight twist of the mouth, the hair or the eyes, painted often without pupils - slight dislocations that lift the work from being a 'mere' portrait.' (ibid.)

'The relationship between woman and goddess runs through the artist's oeuvre: beginning with paintings of the woman hidden within the goddess, he progresses to images of ordinary women possessed with divine power.' (Amrita Jhaveri, A Guide to 101 Modern and Contemporary Indian Artists, Mumbai, 2005, p. 20). He successfully juxtaposes religious iconography with a contemporary middle-class existence.
Durga is most notably worshipped in Bhattacharjee's hometown of Calcutta and is one of Bengal's most popular deities, hence it was only appropriate that he should choose to portray her. The iconography is derived from the imagery seen during the popular Bengali festival of Durga puja and the Dutch Bengal oils that were produced in Calcutta from the late nineteenth century onwards.