Mohan Samant

Dölf Amacker went to India around 1948, shortly after independence and worked there as a young engineer. This work was acquired during his stay, between 1948 and 1961.

There is craquelure present across the surface of the canvas as the paint has been applied very thickly. There are small flecks of paint loss visible across the surface, most notably around the edges of the painting, as viewed.
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Mohan Samant, born in Bombay in 1924, was an early modernist painter and member of the renowned Progressive Artist Group (PAG), which he joined in 1952. He exhibited with the Group in several shows including their first showing in America and also with PAG’s successor, the Bombay Group, which included the likes of K.K Hebbar, Laxman Pai and K.H. Ara.
The Rockefeller Fellowship took Samant to New York City where he remained until 1964. He established a presence in America in the early sixties where his work was acquired by MoMA, New York (1961) and the legendary Dunn International in 102 Best Painters of the World (1963) alongside Western greats like Edward Hopper, Robert Rauschenberg and Willem de Kooning. Indeed Samant was singled out for special recognition in the Time magazine article following the show. Other highlights in his career included participation at the Venice Biennale (1956), Lalit Kala Akademi Award (All India Art Award, 1956) and a show at the Tate Gallery, London (1963). Following a short return to Mumbai, he moved to New York permanently in 1968, where he continued to paint and exhibit internationally. In 2000, Samant received the Asian American Heritage Award for lifetime achievement in the arts.
Ranjit Hoskote, wrote in 2008 that Mohan Samant was “the missing link in the evolutionary narrative of contemporary art in India” (R. Hoskote, "The One-Man Avante-Garde: Mohan Samant, Cutouts and Works on Paper, 1974–85” in Mohan Samant: Mixed Media Works, exh. cat. Pundole Art Gallery, Mumbai, 2008, unpaginated).