Hari Ambadas Gade

Acquired directly from the artist's family by the present owner

Delhi Art Gallery, Continuum: Progressive Artists' Group, New Delhi, 2011, illustration p. 98

Some paint shrinkage to yellow pigment at upper and lower left quadrants, and at brown pigment centre left. Minor water mark at lower centre.
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One of the founding members of the Progressive Artists’ Group, Hari Ambadas Gade was also one of the first Indian Modernists to experiment with Abstract Expressionism, alongside his close friend Sayed Haider Raza. Unlike Raza, Gade spent his life based in India and did not pursue higher art studies in Europe or the United States.

In the present work, the vibrant manipulation of pigment exemplifies Gade’s mastery as an abstractionist and as a colorist. Regarding color theory, Gade looked to the painterly concerns of the Fauvists. “The juxtaposition of color, with its emotive functions, is my primary concern; I receive my pictorial experience through color, with all its technical and spacial attributes,” (Gade re-printed in S.A. Krishnan, Gade, Bombay, 1961). Built with layers of impasto delivered with broad strokes of the palette knife, Gade’s sensuous abstract painting presents the viewer with a study in dynamic color. As in many of his works, we find Gade’s signature subdued palette of warm, earth-toned burnt umbers. Critic Yashodhara Dalmia explains: “The subtle shift of color, particularly in his oil paintings, create rich texture which irradiates a glow from within … the somber complementary [colors] that create depth of paint suggesting endless landmass are invoked by Gade, a textured surface that irradiated further to add to its abundant quality.” (Y. Dalmia, The Making of Modern Art: The Progressives, Delhi, 2001, p. 179)

Perhaps the least visible member of the Progressive Artists’ Group, Gade nonetheless remains of central importance in the development of the Indian Modernist idiom.