Gulam Rasool Santosh

Acquired from the artist’s family

Sotheby’s New York, Modern and Contemporary South Asian Art, 18 September 2013, lot 82

K. Singh (ed.), Awakening: A Retrospective of G.R. Santosh, Delhi Art Gallery Pvt. Ltd., New Delhi, 2011, illustration p. 127

New Delhi, Delhi Art Gallery, Awakening: A Retrospective of G.R. Santosh, 5 January - 21 January 2012

“I don’t sketch, I divide the canvas down the central axis and star. Since I try to create colour as light, the painting is built slowly, gradually.” 

(Gulam Rasool Santosh quoted in U. Nair, Ghulam Rasool Santosh: The Kashmiri Shaivite, Indian Council for Cultural Relations, New Delhi, 2022 p. 35)

Following a 1960 visit to the Amarnath caves - an important shrine and pilgrimage site for Hindus - Gulam Rasool Santosh became deeply influenced by Kashmiri Shaivism, an ancient Kashmiri Hindu tradition focused on tantra. In the following decade, Santosh dramatically reorganized his canvases, removing cubist influences from his works and instead emphasizing bold colors and gracefully curved lines while simultaneously incorporating tantric iconographies, placing himself at the vanguard of the neo-Tantric movement in the process.

Untitled is one such depiction of the human spirit. The canvas is vertically symmetrical, with a female figure occupying much of the picture plane, whose haloed head is rendered in bright tones that are juxtaposed with the cool green of the background. Santosh has decorated the body with yantras, or sacred geometrical symbols, that signify the regenerative aspects of consciousness, and the figure’s lower half is imagined as a delicate lotus – this flower plays an important role in Tantric texts, with a blooming lotus conceptualized as appearing alongside each chakra. A fitting tribute to the female form, Untitled is a beautiful piece that speaks to Santosh’s unique ability to channel complex Tantric theories into visual art.

“Tantra however was not an intellectual exercise for me, but an internal urge, a call to understand the truth that is the source and underlying principle of everything, the truth that fashions the contours of our creative expression.”

(Gulam Rasool Santosh quoted in U. Nair, Ghulam Rasool Santosh, p. 31)