Gulam Rasool Santosh (1929 - 1997)

Acquired directly from the artist

There are minor hairline cracks with associated flaking in areas of thickly applied paint. There is slight paint peelage on the edges of the board in the centre of the work. This painting is framed behind glass and in good overall condition, as viewed.
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The present painting is an early, rare, and expansive example of G.R. Santosh’s figurative work. The artful movements of the subjects in the painting are skillfully depicted in large-scale format, harking back to Santosh’s beginnings as a billboard painter. Though he began as a self-taught artist, in 1954 he was awarded a scholarship to study at the M.S. University of Baroda, where he trained with Narayan Shridhar Bendre and was introduced to the larger Indian modernist movement as well as Western art history. This work is notable as it dates from the first period of his work as a professional fine artist. It establishes his unique voice as an artist with Kashmiri roots, seen for example in the clothing and jewelry of these figures. The vibrancy and dynamism present in the work stands in stark contrast with his later abstracted Tantric paintings and offers a glimpse of Santosh’s joyous celebration of his North Indian culture. “For an artist skilled as a portraitist, it should be no surprise that Santosh made the transition as a figurative painter with such ease. For Santosh, each figurative canvas became a medium to tell a complete story emerging from the everyday life of Kashmir. He would fill the spaces, the background etched in minimally but hinting at the poplars and the fields, the lakes and rivers, while the protagonists would be stylized to fill the canvas, though they never veered away from the streets and fields of the valley that would remain his inspiration throughout his career. The use of earthy colors characterizes this period most strongly, something he would carry with him through a later abstract phase as well -- preparation for which is evident in this and other paintings made during the late 1950s and early 1960s. Critics lauded the use of a strong outline and deliberate strokes of color while evaluating his contribution to the emerging modernism of the time,” (Kishore Singh, Awakening: A Retrospective of G.R. Santosh, Delhi Art Gallery, New Delhi, 2011, pp. 28-58).