- 550
Arpita Singh
Estimate
200,000 - 300,000 USD
bidding is closed
Description
- Arpita Singh
- Amina Kidwai with her Dead Husband
- Signed and dated 'Arpita Singh 92' lower right and inscribed with title around the edge of the canvas
- Oil on canvas
- 68⅛ x 62 in. (173.2 x 158 cm.)
- Painted in 1992
Literature
Y. Dalmia, Contemporary Indian Art: Other Realities, Marg Publications, Mumbai, Vol. 53 No.3, 2002, illustration p. 62
D. Ananth, Arpita Singh, Penguin Books India and Vadehra Art Gallery, 2015, illustration p. 110
D. Ananth, Arpita Singh, Penguin Books India and Vadehra Art Gallery, 2015, illustration p. 110
Condition
There is one spot of minor pigment lifting left on the teapot in the upper quadrant and a very minute hairline crack in the center right behind the male figure's chair. Minor losses along the edges appear inherent. This painting is in excellent condition, as viewed. The skin tones of the figures appear more saturated in the print catalog.
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.
Catalogue Note
“It is easy to be beguiled by the glittering surface of her oil paintings but there is always the subtle hint, like the clues that she scatters on her canvas, to probe a little below the surface till the awareness of the dimensions of another reality grips the viewer. One of the foremost modernists….a formidable painter, Arpita Singh has left her indelible mark on modern and contemporary Indian art.” (E. Datta, Beautiful and Bizarre: The Art of Arpita Singh, http://www.artnewsnviews.com/view-article.php?article=beautiful-and-bizarre-art-of-arpita-singh&iid=17&articleid=382)
Arpita Singh's canvases are often narrative and semi-autobiographical in nature, depicting her very own personal vision of the role of the female in contemporary Indian society. The violence that the departure of one’s own loved ones and the aging process inflict, particularly on women, has historically been among the artist’s concerns. “Her sensibilities, which shaped her images, have been tinged with her childhood memories of loss, dislocation and journeys. Meanwhile the poignancy of her youth slipping away has triggered another rising tide of melancholy. It is not surprising that death is a recurrent motif in her paintings.” (ibid.)
In the 1980s, Singh returned to figuration after spending nearly eight years in black-and-white abstraction. Her body of figurative work often draws on the public and private lives of women like herself, and on the external events that act on them. Like their lives, her intense, multilayered canvases resist any single interpretation. In the 1990s, the artist further started writing on her canvases- names and forms of objects that were in the paintings. This work depicts a man and a woman surrounded by everyday objects such as plants, flowers, teacups, a teapot and a text, the title of the work, “Amina Kidwai and her dead husband” etched along the edges of the canvas. Amina Kidwai and her family were neighbors of Singh for many years through which they garnered a close friendship. Many of Singh’s narrative paintings in the 1990s have referenced three generations of the Kidwai family, who become recognizable characters; Amina’s daughter, Ayesha Kidwai was the girl-woman face that Arpita often painted in this phase of her work. According to Singh, “I chose this family because I know all its members very well and can articulate whatever I want to express through them. In a way this family is a microcosm of contemporary India for me.” Ayesha, a Muslim, married out of the community introducing her life to the conflict between religions, between diverse cultures, generations and the sexes which in one way or the other is the life saga of most families in India. (Y. Dalmia, ‘Arpita Singh: Of Mother Goddesses and Women,’ Expressions & Evocations: Contemporary Women Artists of India, edited by G. Sinha, Marg Publications, Mumbai, 1996, p. 72)
Arpita Singh began her professional life as a textile designer and this experience clearly influences the compositional structure of her canvases. 'I worked as a designer at the Weavers Service Center in the mid-sixties for three or four years. Pupul Jayakar had asked us to design some table mats for the export market and the theme was Kashmir. We would visit the National Museum to study Kashmiri textiles. Looking at those great works of art I really began to understand what pattern was all about. I looked at other kinds of textiles too with an acuter awareness, at more contemporary folk forms as well. A few years later when I started to paint again these influences were there in my work.' (The artist in conversation with Nilima Sheikh, published in Arpita Singh: Memory Jars, Bose Pacia Gallery exhibition catalogue, 2003).
In the current lot, the repetition of birds, palm trees and potted plants clearly draws upon the use of multiple motifs in textile design. The silence of the two figures is juxtaposed by a highly animated and textured space surrounding them. “I feel that textures give strength to my painting – an added dimension.” (G. Sen, Image and Imagination: Five Contemporary Artists in India, Mapin Publishing, Ahmedabad, 1996, p. 116) The thick impasto applied by rough brushstrokes and the fragmented patches of pigment add movement to the canvas. The title around the edges emphasizes what occurs in the main space. The work, like others from oeuvre, is bright and cheerful despite its apparent theme of mortality and loss. Veteran artist, Nilima Sheikh who has written about Arpita and exhibited with her extensively over the years points out, “For her the pleasure and ploy of ornamentation is both celebration and disguise. Along with modernist techniques of painting she foregrounds other devices to celebrate the surface: the use of decorative motifs, patterning and what I would like to call illuminating, inexorably bringing to life, tending a surface she fears might dull. Or if it is not offered life through touch or sign, even die. Yet more often than not the motifs offered are funerary, about mourning the dead and celebrating dying. About living in spite of dying. About enacting death.” (Y. Dalmia, ‘Arpita Singh: Of Mother Goddesses and Women,’ Expressions & Evocations: Contemporary Women Artists of India, edited by G. Sinha, Marg Publications, Mumbai, 1996, p. 72)
Arpita Singh's canvases are often narrative and semi-autobiographical in nature, depicting her very own personal vision of the role of the female in contemporary Indian society. The violence that the departure of one’s own loved ones and the aging process inflict, particularly on women, has historically been among the artist’s concerns. “Her sensibilities, which shaped her images, have been tinged with her childhood memories of loss, dislocation and journeys. Meanwhile the poignancy of her youth slipping away has triggered another rising tide of melancholy. It is not surprising that death is a recurrent motif in her paintings.” (ibid.)
In the 1980s, Singh returned to figuration after spending nearly eight years in black-and-white abstraction. Her body of figurative work often draws on the public and private lives of women like herself, and on the external events that act on them. Like their lives, her intense, multilayered canvases resist any single interpretation. In the 1990s, the artist further started writing on her canvases- names and forms of objects that were in the paintings. This work depicts a man and a woman surrounded by everyday objects such as plants, flowers, teacups, a teapot and a text, the title of the work, “Amina Kidwai and her dead husband” etched along the edges of the canvas. Amina Kidwai and her family were neighbors of Singh for many years through which they garnered a close friendship. Many of Singh’s narrative paintings in the 1990s have referenced three generations of the Kidwai family, who become recognizable characters; Amina’s daughter, Ayesha Kidwai was the girl-woman face that Arpita often painted in this phase of her work. According to Singh, “I chose this family because I know all its members very well and can articulate whatever I want to express through them. In a way this family is a microcosm of contemporary India for me.” Ayesha, a Muslim, married out of the community introducing her life to the conflict between religions, between diverse cultures, generations and the sexes which in one way or the other is the life saga of most families in India. (Y. Dalmia, ‘Arpita Singh: Of Mother Goddesses and Women,’ Expressions & Evocations: Contemporary Women Artists of India, edited by G. Sinha, Marg Publications, Mumbai, 1996, p. 72)
Arpita Singh began her professional life as a textile designer and this experience clearly influences the compositional structure of her canvases. 'I worked as a designer at the Weavers Service Center in the mid-sixties for three or four years. Pupul Jayakar had asked us to design some table mats for the export market and the theme was Kashmir. We would visit the National Museum to study Kashmiri textiles. Looking at those great works of art I really began to understand what pattern was all about. I looked at other kinds of textiles too with an acuter awareness, at more contemporary folk forms as well. A few years later when I started to paint again these influences were there in my work.' (The artist in conversation with Nilima Sheikh, published in Arpita Singh: Memory Jars, Bose Pacia Gallery exhibition catalogue, 2003).
In the current lot, the repetition of birds, palm trees and potted plants clearly draws upon the use of multiple motifs in textile design. The silence of the two figures is juxtaposed by a highly animated and textured space surrounding them. “I feel that textures give strength to my painting – an added dimension.” (G. Sen, Image and Imagination: Five Contemporary Artists in India, Mapin Publishing, Ahmedabad, 1996, p. 116) The thick impasto applied by rough brushstrokes and the fragmented patches of pigment add movement to the canvas. The title around the edges emphasizes what occurs in the main space. The work, like others from oeuvre, is bright and cheerful despite its apparent theme of mortality and loss. Veteran artist, Nilima Sheikh who has written about Arpita and exhibited with her extensively over the years points out, “For her the pleasure and ploy of ornamentation is both celebration and disguise. Along with modernist techniques of painting she foregrounds other devices to celebrate the surface: the use of decorative motifs, patterning and what I would like to call illuminating, inexorably bringing to life, tending a surface she fears might dull. Or if it is not offered life through touch or sign, even die. Yet more often than not the motifs offered are funerary, about mourning the dead and celebrating dying. About living in spite of dying. About enacting death.” (Y. Dalmia, ‘Arpita Singh: Of Mother Goddesses and Women,’ Expressions & Evocations: Contemporary Women Artists of India, edited by G. Sinha, Marg Publications, Mumbai, 1996, p. 72)