MOHAN SAMANT | UNTITLED

Acquired from Gallery Chemould, Calcutta, circa late 1960s

Thence by descent

‘I have long suspected that Mohan Samant was the missing link in the evolutionary nature of contemporary art in India… a dislocated, but never disoriented, pioneer.’ (R. Hoskote, Mohan Samant Paintings, Mapin Publishing Pvt. Ltd., Ahmedabad, 2013, p. 15)

Born and raised in Bombay, Mohan Samant joined the Progressive Artists' Group upon his graduation from the Sir J.J. School of Art in 1952. From the outset of his career, Samant exhibited his work alongside his fellow Indian modernists, in seminal shows such as ‘Progressive Artists' Group: Gaitonde, Raiba, Ara, Hazarnis, Khanna, Husain, Samant, Gade’ at Bombay’s Jehangir Art Gallery in 1953 and ‘Eight Painters: Bendre, Gaitonde, Gujral, Husain, Khanna, Kulkarni, Kumar, Samant’, curated by Thomas Keehn in New Delhi in 1956. Samant’s career-long association with and contribution to modern Indian art has, however, only relatively recently been given its due recognition.

Samant is known for an incredibly diverse body of work. He derived inspiration from a wide variety of sources – including the cave paintings of Lascaux and Pre-Columbian ceramics – and has boldly experimented with mixed media, incorporating acrylic, oil, wire and sand on his canvases. Ranjit Hoskote notes that 'Unlike many other artists of his generation in India, Samant did not believe the medium to be sacrosanct. Mastery over the medium meant, to him, the power to cross, graft, and reconfigure it in such a way that an artwork could transcend its formal limitations while extending its conceptual premises.' (Hoskote, Mohan Samant Paintings, p. 16)

In the current lot, Samant challenges the boundaries between figuration and abstraction. In and amongst the almost hieroglyphic mark-making, two standing figures emerge centre-right, virtually indecipherable but for Samant’s use of red and yellow paint. Beside them, a sumptuous area of blue paint runs the length of the canvas, resembling the flowing form of a waterfall. This richly textured canvas powerfully exhibits the visionary freedom with which Samant approached his work.