Untitled

PROPERTY FROM AN IMPORTANT MUMBAI COLLECTION

Oil on masonite
1984
35 1/4 × 19 5/8 in. (89.5 × 49.9 cm.)

Signed and dated ‘Anjolie Ela Menon 84’ lower right

Anjolie Ela Menon painted her first nude composition at the age of fifteen when she was still at school; it was a self- portrait. The artist explains, ‘in an oblique sense, when a woman paints a nude, ‘SHE IS ME’ is often implicit in the work, at least metaphorically.’ (Isana Murti, ‘Nudes’, Anjolie Ela Menon: Through the Patina, exhibition catalogue, Vadehra Art Gallery, 2010, New Delhi, p. 125)

The early portraits reveal a prodigious talent for such a young artist with a surprisingly mature and confident handling of her chosen medium. The nude, both male and female, has remained a popular theme throughout Menon’s career, taking on many avatars and forms at different stages of her life. At the Sir J.J. School of Art in Mumbai, Menon was taught to sketch academic nudes. She recalls being indifferent to the classes, but later in life recognised how important these early classes were for her own experiments with the nude form. A few years later, she again attended life drawing classes at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, where male models would pose in the style of Greek or Roman statuary. It was here that she realised that the anatomy of the Indian body was treated in a different manner in classical Indian sculptures, leading to a softer, less overtly muscled approach in her own work.

During her time in Europe, she witnessed the full range of approaches to the nude as a subject. She saw the works of Rubens, Renoir, Bosch and Degas, and was particularly inspired by Botticelli’s Venus at the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, returning many times over the course of one winter to view the work. She also visited European cathedrals at Vézelay and Chartres, and became increasingly fascinated by Romanesque art. Christian icons, both clothed and partially nude, became an important inspiration for her later works. The manner in which her figures are bathed in an ethereal light is clearly drawn from these European sources.

The current work, dated to 1984, combines two of the artist’s most favoured subjects, the female nude and the window. The window frame became a recurring theme in Menon’s work of the early 1970s, where the open window evolved as an evocative metaphor. ‘She then moved to the next phase where the window acquired its own autonomy as an ‘object trouve’ – the wooden frame became integral to the painting.' However, this was more by accident than by design.

In the mid-1970s, Menon who lived in Mumbai had to send a painting to Delhi at short notice. Lacking the appropriate frame, she rummaged through the garage and found an old window – with bits of coloured glass adhering to the frame. As she recalls: ‘I just nailed the painting to the back of the window and the result was rather intriguing – and by that happy accident, a new genre was born.’ (ibid.) Elaborating further, the artist states, ‘... I was fascinated by these objects ... These frames bore years of over painting under the grime. A little scraping resulted in a marvellous patinated surface, peeled scratched and pitted, unveiling layers of pigment from some past era.’ (ibid.)

The layers of pigment revealed by scraping and sanding these found frames, provided a counter-balance to the artist’s own painting technique, which involved building up multiple layers of pigment in the manner or a byzantine icon. The vertical and horizontal stretchers of the windows, likewise, provided natural divisions to her works, simultaneously ‘framing’ and dissecting her figures in unexpected ways. Equally, it introduces a voyeuristic element to these works, most powerfully experienced in her series based around the sex workers of Foras Road, in which she depicts women displaying themselves in open windows.
Condition: The colours of the original are similar to the catalogue illustration. A few minor areas of surface dirt and a few scattered hairline abrasions visible. Overall good condition.