Exhibitions

Lot 17

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Mohan Samant
Summer

- Born to a landowning family in Mumbai, Samant graduated from Sir J.J. School of Arts in 1952, winning India's two most prestigious art honors, the gold medal of the Academy of Fine Arts of Calcutta and that of the Bombay Art Society. He worked in Italy for two years (1957-58) on an Italian government scholarship. He studied Basholi miniature painting under M. Palsikar. In January 1959, he came to New York on a Rockefeller grant.

Renowned art historian and critic John Richardson named the artist among the world’s 100 best artists in the year 1963. Hillary Clinton later honored Samant during her senatorial campaign as the best artist living in Manhattan. Influenced by such painters as Paul Klee and Picasso, Samant appreciates inventing one's own form and style and yet having a personality that is completely apart from style. 'You can evolve in what you are persistent in creating,' said Samant. 'There are 25 different ways of painting, and confronting a canvas evolves into a form in 15 different ways. You don't repeat yourself.'

In the early 50s, Samant joined the Progressive Artists' Group. While his fellow PAGs took their inspiration predominately from Paris, Samant explored the imagery o f Egyptian funerary wall drawings, Ajanta murals and Rajput miniatures, establishing a range of primeval images in his work.

Since 1968, Samant has been living in New York. In an interview, he describes spending hours at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where he continues to find powerful symbols in the assembly of cultural relics from around the world. He describes his art almost like installation art; only difference being that my installation is within my frame." He does a large number of wire drawings and proceeds to fit them like the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle on to the canvas. He never knows what it's going to look like until he is 70 per cent of the way through.

Explaining the creative processes, he once noted: 'I do not practice sarangi. I play it every day as if I am in a concert, sometimes very well, sometimes very badly. Similarly, I don't practice painting with drawing and sketching. I just paint and if I don't like it I over paint the same canvas twice, thrice, many times. I do not use drawings and sketches in preparation for the paintings, they are separate works altogether.'

Though his paintings are invariably mixed media, the heterogeneous elements are deftly blended to create pieces that are surprisingly simple in appearance. His paintings are primarily abstract, but retain figurative aspects that often-limning mythic narratives. One of the most intriguing aspects of Samant's paintings is his use of texture: manipulation of paint materials with sand and glue in the early 1960's, paper cutouts attached to the canvas in the 1970's and the application of wire drawings in the 1980's.

A sarangi exponent, Samant's music occupies a large part of his heart. In the artist's Manhattan studio on May 18, 2003, an afternoon of music and art was arranged when he played Indian classical ragas on the sarangi surrounded by his paintings.

Among his prominent solo shows are Jehangir Art Gallery, Mumbai (2000), Birla Academy of Art, Kolkata (1998), Birla Academy of Art & Culture, Mumbai (1997), Gallery B.A.I., New York (1995, 94), Birthday Book, New York (1975, 73), Selected Artists Gallery, New York (1972), Pundole Gallery, Mumbai (1967), Gallery Chemould, Mumbai and Delhi (1966), Taj Art Gallery, Mumbai (1966), Taj Art Gallery, Mumbai (1965), World House Galleries, New York (1961-65) and Rome Institute of Oriental Studies, Italy (1958)

His work features in several prestigious collections including Asia Society, New York, Birla Art Academy, Kolkata, Carnegie Institute, Pittsburgh, Colgate University, New York, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution, Washington D.C., The Museum of Modern Art, New York, The National Gallery of Modern Art, New Delhi and Lalit Kala Akademi, Delhi - Born to a landowning family in Mumbai, Samant graduated from Sir J.J. School of Arts in 1952, winning India's two most prestigious art honors, the gold medal of the Academy of Fine Arts of Calcutta and that of the Bombay Art Society. He worked in Italy for two years (1957-58) on an Italian government scholarship. He studied Basholi miniature...

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Lot 17 of 32

FRAMING INDIA: AN EXHIBITION OF MODERN INDIAN ART

ARTWORK DETAILS

Mohan Samant

Summer

Signed in Devnagari (upper left)

1952

Gouache, ink and acrylic on cardboard

17.5 x 23.5 in (44.5 x 59.5 cm)

PUBLISHED
Kishore Singh ed., Memory and Identity: Indian Artists Abroad, New Delhi: DAG, 2016, p. 276 (illustrated)
Giles Tillotson, Primitivism and Modern Indian Art, Second Edition, New Delhi: DAG, 2021, p. 207 (illustrated)

Category: Painting
Style: Figurative