Bhupen Khakhar (Indian, 1934-2003) Residency Bungalow

Property from the Estate of Robert & Janice Shaw
Bhupen Khakhar (Indian, 1934-2003)
Residency Bungalow
signed and dated in Gujarati 'Bhupen 69' centre right; further signed 'A. Gupta 30/5/1969 Bhupen' and titled 'Residency Bungalow' (sic) verso
oil on canvas, framed
130.5 x 122.5cm (51 3/8 x 48 1/4in).
Property from the Estate of Robert & Janice Shaw

Provenance
Acquired by Robert & Janice Shaw from India in the early 1970s.

Exhibited
X Bienal Setembro-Dezembro 1969 (Sao Paolo Biennale), Work 23. Bangalô Residencial, 1969. 130 x 122

X Bienal Setembro-Dezembro 1969 (Sao Paolo Biennale), Work 23. Bangalô Residencial, 1969. 130 x 122, pg. 109.

Lines of Descent: The Family in Contemporary Asian Art, Queensland Art Gallery, June 2000-February 2001 http://www.visualarts.qld.gov.au/linesofdescent/works/bhupen.html

Timothy Hyman, Bhupen Khakhar, Chemould Publication & Arts, 1998, pg. 118 , Referred to as Sheikh at Residency Bungalow(not illustrated)

There is a 'Biennial of São Paulo' label on the reverse with the name and surname of the artist (Bhupen Khakar), title of the work (Residency Bungalow), category and dimensions (painting and 130 x 122 cm), technique (oil), sale price (US 1500), owner (artist) and address (Lalit Kala Akademi, Rabindra Bhavan, New Dehi, India). There is an additional price of RS 3500 Rupees Three thousand five hundred written on to the label. This label is overlaid on top of another label, through which we can read 'For Sao Paolo Exhibition.'

'Bhupen Khakkar paints naively humorous or satirical works. His flat colours are broken by stiff characters and ornamental vegetation. Vast spaces are contrasted with little doll like figures.' (X Bienal Setembro-Dezembro 1969, p. 108)

Making its auction debut, 'Residency Bungalow' is an exquisite example from Khakhar's early oeuvre and is a masterful and intimate work. Painted in 1969, two years prior to 'Portraits of my mother and my father going to Yatra,' it is not only referenced in Timothy Hyman's book, Bhupen Khakhar, as 'Sheikh at Residency Bungalow,' but was also exhibited at the September-December 1969 X São Paulo, after which it was acquired by Robert and Janice Shaw in India in the early 1970s.

Robert L. Shaw had a dual career as an army intelligence offer and lawyer. He graduated from the University of Oregon in 1955, where he was president of the Chi Psi fraternity, after which he was commissioned as a regular U.S. Army officer and served as an adviser to the King's Royal Guard in Saudi Arabia. He also served two tours in Vietnam. During his career, he earned a master's and doctorate degree. His career took him to India, where he resided from 1969 until at least 1974. He served as a foreign area specialist and travelled extensively in India, Pakistan, and Afghanistan. The Bhupen Khakhar and B. Prabha (Lot 15) were acquired during his stay in India, along with carpets, and works by the Vietnamese artist Le-Minh, the latter of which is also being offered in Bonhams' future Hong Kong sale. He learnt to speak Hindi whilst in India and was the first American to travel to Tibet and have an audience with the Dalai Lama. He wrote about the experience in an article which was published in Liberty Magazine in the 1980s. Considered a political-military scholar, he became the director of the South Asia Bureau of the Defence Intelligence Agency in Washington D.C. and retired from the army in 1977. He took a sabbatical for a year, and then enrolled at the University of Oregon's law school, from where he obtained his law degree in 1981. He subsequently joined the Eugene law firm, Luvaas, Cobb, Richards & Fraser, and was a member of the Oregon State Bar, American Bar Association, Oregon Association of Defence Counsel and the Eugene Country Club. He passed away in 1989, having battled cancer for a year and was survived by his wife, Janice, and son Scott both of whom passed away in 2022. An avid sportsman, he enjoyed polo, skiing, fly fishing and golf and spent many years sailing in Chesapeake Bay and in Hawaii, from where he collected local works of art.

'Residency Bungalow' measures 130.5 x 122.5 cm and depicts a sprawling bungalow set against a vibrant blue sky. This house was Khakhar's first significant home away from Bombay and is important because it was symbolic of the new 'artistic,' 'home' and 'family' that Khakhar adopted from 1962 in Baroda. (Bhupen Khakhar in Lines of Descent: The Family in Contemporary Asian Art, a Queensland Art Gallery travelling exhibition (visualarts.qld.gov.au).

Khakhar was a qualified chartered accountant and worked as such but was drawn towards art and would spend his free time pursing the subject. His interest in art can be traced to his teenage years, when aged 18 he attended an evening art class in Grant Road. Here he was taught free hand drawings and flower studies. In his 20s, he would begin to visit contemporary art exhibitions and acquired a group of intellectually minded friends who were drawn towards literature. It was during this time that he befriended Gulammohammed Sheikh, who had attended the newly Founded Faculty of Fine Arts at Baroda, and this relationship would alter the course of his career.

In 1958, while taking his accountancy exams, Khakhar met a young Gujarati painter-poet, Gulammohamad Sheikh...Sheikh had attended the newly founded Faculty of Fine Arts at Baroda and spoke of it in a way that fired Khakhar's imagination. By 1960, Khakar was still helpless; he was attending an evening class at the main Bombay Art College, the Sir J.J. School of Art, which offered 'absolutely no teaching' and 'hardly any direction.' He remembers his teacher, Palsikar, speaking only to the girl students. 'He never came to instruct me, even once in six months...I was very cheesed off.' In 1961, he joined the graphics and woodcut class of Vasant Para who Khakhar considers 'my first teacher.' It was around this time that he finally took the step of showing Sheikh – by now part of the Baroda Faculty – his portfolio. The response was guarded but sympathetic. 'Why don't you come to Baroda? You are now a fully qualified accountant; if it doesn't work out well, you can always resume.' (Timothy Hyman, Bhupen Khakhar, Chemould Publication and Arts, 1998, p. 9)

Residency Bungalow becomes the starting point in many ways for Bhupen, as this is his first proper home away from Bombay and where the style of work he becomes known for flourishes; he did live with GM Sheikh at the Shivmahal Palace Farmhouse and later rented a room in a bazaar, before moving into Residency Bungalow in 1968. The old house of a one-time 'British Resident' it was divided into five residential quarters and the inhabitants included the artists, K.G Subramanyan and his family, Bhupen Khakhar, Gulammohammed Sheikh, Jeram Patel, and Krishna Chhatpar. They lived here for about a year, and it was during this time that Khakhar travelled around India, to Bundi-Kota, Udaipur, Nathdwara and Chandigarh along with Sheikh and began to absorb the techniques of traditional Indian paintings. Upon his return from these travels, his style had altered, and there was a marked difference in his works. Flat surfaces and neo-miniaturism replaced the sculptural elements and congestion that had been the hallmarks of works, such as the 1965 work titled, 'Interior of a Muslim House No. 1.' Instead of propagating the 'high art' of Court Paintings however, he created a new idiom by focussing on elevating the mundane and painting the street aesthetic that he had experimented with in his earlier works. It is against this backdrop that Residency Bungalow was painted in 1969, and foreshadows the style that would come to dominate his oeuvre going forth.

A fictional Gulammohammed Sheikh appears to be the main figure of the painting and is sitting with his right arm perched on a table, resplendent in his purple sherwani, black Nehru top and white trousers. He has been aged and is depicted with a white beard to accompany his white hair. This time altering trope is one that he would reemploy in his 1971 painting, 'Portraits of my mother and my father going to Yatra.' In Yatra, he painted his mother to look youthful whilst he aged his father. His father had passed away when he was 4, and he painted him from memory, whereas he painted his mother from a contemporary photograph. Interestingly, the seeds for altering the age of the figures in his works was possibly sown in 'Residency Bungalow.' Gulammohammed Sheikh may have acted as surrogate father, which explains his depiction as the formidable and authoritative figure in the painting. Directly behind him are two male figures completely engrossed in their conversation sitting in the veranda, having tea. They are looking away from the viewer, and might perhaps be the inhabitants of the house, again Gulammohammed Sheikh on the right and the sculptor Nagji Patel, on the left. The family trio depicted in the top left window are likely to be the artist K.G.Subramanyan, his wife Susheela and daughter Uma who resided on the top floor. Khakhar's works are known for being autobiographical and this is evident in this painting. He has painted his artistic family, and home, and the dual depiction of Gulammohammed Sheikh illustrates the importance of this relationship. Interestingly, Sheikh's features are only visible in the character that is sitting closest to the viewer, and the detailing echoes those found in miniature painting. We can see each button of his clothing, and even the chain of the pocket watch.

The influence of his accountancy career is also evident. Numerically, he has depicted one man seated in the foreground of the canvas, two men seated directly behind him in the distance, and a family of three looking out from the window of the bungalow. There is also a foreshadowing to the pilgrim chart style that he would employ both in 'Yatra' and in the 1981 work 'You Can't Please All,' held as part of the Tate's Collection. The bungalow...