Vinod Shah (Indian, B.1937) Untitled (Saurashtra Village Life)

Vinod Shah (Indian, B.1937)
Untitled (Saurashtra Village Life)
signed 'Vinod Shah' centre right, circa late 1960s/early 1970s
oil and sand on board, framed
61 x 60.2cm (24 x 23 11/16in).
Provenance
Property from a private collection, UK;
Acquired in the late 1970s from the artist.

There is a label on the reverse with the artists name, faculty, title of the exhibit and price. There is another square label which contains the following 'Vinod Shah, Faculty of Fine Arts Baroda.'

Born in Rajkot, Gujarat, Shah graduated from the Faculty of Fine Arts at Maharaja Sayajirao University, Baroda with a master's degree in Painting. Shortly after he joined the institution as a lecturer, and eventually was appointed as the Head of the Department of Painting. He was part of the Baroda Group of artists, an experimental art school that brought together artists of a variety of backgrounds and offered an alternative to the nationalism associated with Santiniketan and the Bengal School, whilst promoting the virtues of contemporary art.

The Group embraced the concept of 'Living Traditions,' the idea that traditions and folk art are necessary to modern and contemporary art, and that artists must learn from them. This led to the wide dissemination of these traditions, which influenced these artists both in terms of the content they painted and the mediums they used. Shah for example not only adopted the minimalistic palette of folk art and the stylized depictions of figures but combined this with using sand as a medium. He went further however and was instrumental in introducing the torching paint method whereby he torched the sand with a burner. The present lot is a fine example of this.

Shah hails from the village of Saurashtra in Rajkot, Gujrat and as such most of his works depict images of village life. In the present work, we can see a village man with two bulls, against the backdrop of hills and a blazing sun. The bulls are particularly important as their horns are elegant, a hallmark of Shah's practise. The overall composition is two dimensional, and yet the sand adds an element of three dimensionality to the work. It elevates the painting and adds texture. The lyricality of the work is complemented by the sparse use of colours, exuding a childlike, untarnished view of the world.