Mohan Samant (1924-2004)

Christie's New York, May 17, 1994, lot 552
Previously in the collection of Mr. and Mrs. John D. Rockefeller III

Yale University Art Gallery, New York Galleries Exhibition, 7 December 1961 - 4 February 1962

Due to the use of thick impasto on this work, areas of craquelure have occured throughout the painting. The only noticable area of paint loss is an inch long chip in the center, to the right of the figure. Beige tones in the work are slightly darker than in catalogue illustration.
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In February 1959, Mohan Samant left Bombay for New York City on a Rockefeller Fellowship, where he would remain until 1964.

White Wall dates from this first New York period. Texture, particularly relief and impasto, characterizes Samant's work at this time. Paintings are more spare, with more subdued, at times monochromatic, palettes. Like Green Square of a few years later (1963; collection of the Museum of Modern Art, New York), White Wall displays linear abstractions and the use of random scratches to enhance the surface. Such surface treatment remained a distinctive feature of Samant's canvases throughout his life, ultimately forming the foundation of works that became increasingly complex and multilayered.

In 1968, Samant, like S.H. Raza and F.N. Souza before him, left India permanently, in Samant's case to New York, where he lived until his death in 2004.

We would like to thank Ms. Judith Hanson for her kind assistance with this note, adapted from the essay by Dr. Marcella Sirhandi in the forthcoming publication, Mohan Samant, to be released in 2013.