Ganesh Pyne ((1937 - 2013))

Acquired from a private Delhi based collector

There are minor undulations in the surface of the board. This work is mounted and framed behind glass, in good condition as viewed.
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The present work by Ganesh Pyne is an evocative representation of a puppet, characteristic of how he created illusionary and mythic space through the play of light and shadow throughout his career. Pyne often plays with scale in his works, illustrated here in the puppet’s position at the front of the picture plane, taking up much of the canvas to leave lingering questions about the surrounding context. Pyne departs from his usual palette of ochres and blacks, which relates him to the Bengal School, in his use of red in the painting. Haunted by riots in his home city of Calcutta in 1946, Pyne “often plumps the darker aspects of humanity, using ashen tones, staring eyes, and spectral bodies to explore how we live and breathe in concert with the otherworldy and the ghostly” (Rebecca Brown, “Ganesh Pyne,” Midnight to the Boom, 2013, p. 170).