Gulam Rasool Santosh (1929 - 1997)

Collection of Chester and Davida Herwitz, New York

Acquired from the above by Aicon Gallery, New York

Acquired from the above

K. Singh ed., Awakening: A Retrospective of G. R. Santosh, New Delhi, Delhi Art Gallery, 2011, illustrated p. 120

There are very fine stretcher marks present in the upper center of the canvas. Pinhole sized area of paint loss between the blue and brown paint in the lower right quadrant. This work is in good condition, as viewed. Frame: Minor wear to the frame
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The current monumental work by Gulam Rasool Santosh, formerly in the historic Chester and Davida Herwitz Collection, is the largest painting by this important artist to come to market. The Herwitz family deeply admired the work of Santosh, collected his paintings prodigiously, and as such, had in their collection many of the most significant works by the artist. From among the works in the Herwitz’s extensive collection, GR Santosh was in fact one of the two most collected artists.

During a visit to Kashmir in the late 1940s, G.R. Santosh was ‘discovered’ as a young man by none other than Sayed Haider Raza—both artists who would, in the decades to follow, veer away from representional and abstract art and play major roles in the development of Indian neo-Tantrism. A comparison of the two artists reveals similar trajectories in terms of the evolution of their early and mature career works. In the 1950s, Santosh experimented with figuration; Raza with landscapes and cityscapes. By the 1960s, both artists moved into superb abstract expressionist periods. In the 1970s and 80s, both Santosh and Raza would develop and perfect the iconic and tightly ordered geometric works for which they are both best known. As early as 1971, we begin to see examples of Santosh’s signature neo-Tantric works (see Sotheby's New York, March 19, 2008, lot 30); whereas we see this shift in Raza slightly later, in the period from 1977—1979.

With the early support of Raza, Santosh joined the Progressive Artist Association in Srinagar, and was later awarded the National Cultural Scholarship to study at Baroda University under Nariyan Shridhar Bendre. Aiming to develop a style that would truly articulate a unique idiom for modern Indian art, Santosh veered away from derivative European styles and began embracing the facets of his native culture. He explains ‘I went to Amarnath in the sixties, purely as an artist-tourist. But the truth is, that unknown to me, this yatra (journey/pilgrimage) changed my life, the way I think. Upon my return from the yatra, a ‘new’ poetry was born’ (K. Singh, Awakening: A Retrospective of G.R.Santosh, Delhi Art Gallery, New Delhi, 2011, p. 39). Fascinated by mystical religious traditions within Kashmiri Shaivism, a branch of Indian philosophy, Santosh implemented ancient tantric iconographies in his work and subsequently reinterpreted them by reducing them to abstractions, culminating in the construction of a fresh aesthetic language.  Launching himself at the vanguard of the neo-Tantric movement, his work centered around the esoteric symbols found in Buddhist and Hindu tantrism.  

This vertically symmetrical picture plane consists of an anthropomorphic figure seated in a stylized padmasana, the meditative lotus position. Santosh has decorated the body with yantras, or sacred geometrical symbols, that signify the regenerative aspects of consciousness. The face is composed of a circular naad bindu, representing the cosmos in its equivocal state, sharing an axis with geometric tantric shapes at the abdomen. An upward triangle, a masculine symbol, exists in the same ovoid nucleus as a downward triangle, the mark of the female. The curved contours of the body delineate a voluptuous feminine aspect, softening the angular lines. In Shaivite faith, the fusion of male and female energy suggests the oneness of all things and the eternal harmony of the universe. It is the perfect balance of Shiva’s static, male consciousness and Shakti’s dynamic, female power that first creates and then preserves the universe.

Santosh encloses the patterns of the universe in bright colors and fleshy forms. The figure is acutely vivid against the dark background, an expression of the Shaivist belief that deems each person inherently enlightened. The painted borders on the canvas and the multiple limbs, layers and fragments composing this creation express the multifaceted and infinite nature of the individual as it connects with its nuanced environment. Santosh’s neo-Tantric works were a means to his sadhana, or transformative process, which converted his spiritual being. He states 'The common perception about tantra has been one of magic. Art related to tantra has been informed by the same perception' (K. Singh, p.39).