Important Notice

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The present lot marks a watershed moment in Hari Ambadas Gade’s career: it won him a silver medal at a Bombay Art Society exhibition in 1948, and soon after, an invitation to join the Bombay Progressive Artists’ Group—one of the most influential artist collectives of post‒ Independence India. This association became his initiation into the world of modern art.

Set in the temple town of Omkareshwar, on the banks of the Narmada River in... The present lot marks a watershed moment in Hari Ambadas Gade’s career: it won him a silver medal at a Bombay Art Society exhibition in 1948, and soon after, an invitation to join the Bombay Progressive Artists’ Group—one of the most influential artist collectives of post‒ Independence India. This association became his initiation into the world of modern art.

Set in the temple town of Omkareshwar, on the banks of the Narmada River in Madhya Pradesh, it shows a deserted scene with small medieval houses flanking a winding road populated by two lone figures. Though such red roofed houses would go on to become a key motif in Gade’s oeuvre, he struggled with the composition of the present lot. Yet it pushed him to move beyond academic realism and seek a visual language capable of communicating his inner vision. In his own words, “The landscape thrilled me and I was moved as never before. The imagery was unbelievably different and I found the colours strange and unique. I painted eagerly and stopped only to look at the finished work. The result was miserable and the immediate experience agonising. The atmosphere, so detached from the image at the back of my mind, from my vision. I realised now that it was a significant experience, a moment of revelation, thrill, of fear and hope. For the first time, I realised a disparity between what I felt and what I saw.” (Artist quoted in Yashodhara Dalmia, “Those Uninhabited Houses”, The Making of Modern Indian Art: The Progressives, Oxford University Press, 2001, p. 174)

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