Jagdish Swaminathan (Indian, 1928-1994) Untitled

Property from the Estate of Chresten Pedersen
Jagdish Swaminathan (Indian, 1928-1994)
Untitled
signed and dated in Devanagiri and English 'J Swaminathan 92' verso
oil on canvas, framed
81.1 x 116.1cm (31 15/16 x 45 11/16in).
Property from the Estate of Chresten Petersen

Provenance
Acquired by Mr Pedersen, a Danish diplomat in India in the 1990s.

Madhya Pradesh also brought about a basic shift in my painting again. The live and vibrant contact with tribal cultures triggered off my natural bent for the primeval, and I started on a new phase recalling my work of the early sixties. If my work of the early sixties anticipated the journey of the eighties, my present phase recapitulates my beginnings.
- Jagdish Swaminathan, 1993

Swaminathan oscillates between lucidity that captures the most abstract ideas into jewel-like analogies and dark obscurity, where the ideas that swarm fail to emerge to the surface in words or in images. (G. Kapur, Reaching Out to the Past, Lalit Kala Contemporary 40, March 1995, p. 17)

"Swaminathan's aesthetic, which held that folk art, tribal art, and urban art are all equally valid versions of the contemporary, might appropriately be termed a 'post-colonial aesthetic'" (V. Dehejia, Text Decoded, Beyond the Legacy, Washington, 1998, p. 202).

In the late 1980s, Jagdish Swaminathan's paintings underwent a dramatic stylistic and technical shift. In these later works, texture plays an important role in the creation of the overall image, and it is arrived at through the skilful combination of staining and the interplay of horizontal and vertical bands. Moreover, "the surface of the canvas ceases to be a two-dimensional support system upon which is represented a world, whether abstract or figurative. The surface becomes an arena within which to act and from which the creative ace and material world arise." (K.B. Goel, The Other, J. Swaminathan, Vadehra Art Gallery, Exhibition Catalogue, New Delhi, 1993.)

From the beginning of his artistic career, Jagdish Swaminathan has concerned himself with the exploration of the tribal in modern art. His works draw "upon the collective assemblage of myths and symbols in folk, and other subterranean passages of culture that attempted to reach the unknown in a kind of blind intuitiveness." (G. Kapur, Reaching Out to the Past, Lalit Kala Contemporary 40, New Delhi, March 1995, p. 17.)

Swaminathan was more than an artist. Along with being a founding member of the artist collective Group 1890, he was also known for his membership of the Communist Party of India, for his journal Contra, albeit short lived, for starting a movement to reform the Lalit Kala Akademi in the 1970s and for establishing an interdisciplinary arts centre in Bhopal in the 1980s, called Bharat Bhavan.

He lived outside the cultural influence of the Progressive Artists' Group, rejected academism and the teachings of the Bengal School, which allowed for a flourishing of ideas that was rooted in the mystical, spiritual, and primal. His art was an amalgamation of these ideas, and this distinct outlook kept him at the forefront of the development of a unique idiom of modern Indian art.

His counter-cultural approach is evident in his works that can be grouped under distinct phases. The present work, dating from 1993 is from the last phase of his oeuvre, yet not only pays homage to the works that preceded it but also succeeds in creating a distinct visual language. We can see the influences of symbolism and surrealism despite the innate simplicity and natural order that govern the canvas. The dominant colours are the earthy browns and blacks, punctuated with smatterings of whites. Squares, circles, rectangles, diamonds, and triangles are the geometric motifs that compete and complement each other and are reminiscent of his iconic Bird, Mountain, and Tree series from the 1960s. What makes them unique in this painting however is their greater symbolic significance. The triangle for example, is the mountain, Kailash and symbolises the abode of Shiva, the Hindu God. These additional layers are almost totemic, and "capable of exercising its magical eternal influence on those who come within its field of vision." (J. Swaminathan, 'The Cube and the Rectangle', op. c Lalit Kala Contemporary 40, March 1995, p. 23)

This is a vocabulary unique to Swaminathan, and the symbols that he deployed can be read as "non descriptive, partially associated images" that may not be recognisable, but when seen as a whole, they take on a new and collective meaning. "Whatever specific context they may belong to, he uses images and icons of the past, that in a similar attempt at identification become evocative and remain so even at this point in time. Through the transformed context and relationships in his painting, they become one with traditional and contemporary, because they are born of a motivation that bridges the two in a continuum." (G. Kapur, ibid, p. 17.)

To see a similar work sold at auction see Christies, South Asian Modern & Contemporary Art including works from the collection of Mahinder and Sharad Tak, New York, 23rd March 2022, lot 623.