Sculpture in India has a very long and rich history. From Gandharan sculpture to the rock carvings of Ajanta to Chola bronzes, the medium holds significant cultural and religious value across the centuries. Dhanraj Bhagat is one of few sculptors to bring the tradition into the 21st century, adapting his work for a modern audience.

Born in 1917 in Lahore, Bhagat became a faculty member at the College of Art, Delhi in 1947 upon moving there amidst Partition, joining the community of creatives living and working in the city. In 1949, he co-founded the Delhi Silpi Chakra movement with fellow artists Bhabesh Chandra Sanyal, Pran Nath Mago, Krishna Shamrao Kulkarni and Kanwal Krishna with the mission to provide a space and support system for creators to thrive outside of pre-existing arts institutions such as the All-India Fine Arts and Crafts Society. The collective’s exhibitions showcased young progressive artists who diverted from the popular Bengal School trends and helped financially support them through hire-purchase payment schemes which expanded their collector groups. As an active artist, advocate and educator in Delhi, Bhagat also achieved institutional success and participated in the nation’s first three triennials, marking him as a key figure in the city and the country’s art scene.

Known for experimentation, Bhagat sculpted in a variety of mediums. Unsatisfied with clay, the artist moved to wood early on in his career and created smooth, softly rendered figures, many of them women and musicians. These works were an introduction to the balance and harmony which would appear in later mediums. In the mid-1950s, Bhagat began to experiment with raw materials such as cement, often mixed with iron details, papier-mâché, wax, aluminum, brass, steel and copper. The present lot from 1956 is a foray into plaster of Paris, a white powder that hardens into a solid upon mixing with water, painted with oil.

Simplified and elongated figures comprised Bhagat’s visual language in the 50s, and his sculptures expanded from telling human stories, such as the mother and child, to depicting the divine. His artist’s quest was an inner one, drawing attention to deity forms and metaphysical ideas aptly transformed in superhuman size. The curves of the body which he had stylized as movement in the past now translated into mystical flow with an all-knowing ease. This dance and sound of the universe is perfectly encapsulated by Shiva Dance, a modern descendant of the great Indian sculptural lineage.

In the 1964 Lalit Kala Akademi book on Bhagat which features the current lot on its cover, celebrated art critic and scholar Charles Fabri writes:

Shiva Dance is the foremost masterpiece in Bhagat’s oeuvre, a representation of one of the most iconic images in Indian history, Shiva Nataraja. In the figure’s upper right hand, he holds a damaru (drum), an instrument thought to have made the first sounds of creation which provides the rhythm for the god’s ceaselessly generative dance. While in traditional depictions of Shiva Nataraja there is a specific mudra, Bhagat blended the god with this device, showing only the gentle curve of his grip. In his left hand, the arm melds with a malu (battle axe), a symbol of Shiva’s destructive energy, replacing the oft-depicted fire blaze in Nataraja iconography. These objects of creation and destruction symbolize the immeasurable power of Lord Shiva and, in Bhagat’s sculpture specifically, represent the god’s enduring strength in the minds and hearts of all who encounter him.

The present lot shows the passionate dance of Shiva Nataraja, Tandava, in smooth, flowing lines, a cylindrical form of the body without decoration that distinguishes it from the famous, intricately carved Chola bronzes of the icon. The figure’s one-legged stance, natarajasana, is emphasized by the frenzied dancing leg, while its furthest hand is seemingly shaped in the abhayamudra, the hand gesture of ‘no fear’ that represents protection, peace, reassurance and safety. Perhaps in this simplified form, Shiva Dance brings the viewer even closer to the divine by removing worldly pleasures and human-like qualities to reveal a truly heavenly body.

In March 2024, Sotheby’s sold Shiva’s Dance, a 1966 rendition of this icon, for $215,900 against a pre-sale estimate of $120,000 – 180,000, the current world record for Bhagat. Shiva Dance comes directly from the artist’s family and was widely exhibited across India as an essential sculpture in his retrospective in 2017-2018. The work is also published in a number of important writings about Bhagat and his artistry since the year it was made, 1956, to the present. The present lot is undoubtedly a strong link in the unbroken chain of Shiva Nataraja figures in the illustrious history of Indian sculpture.