GIEVE PATEL | FOREST BOY

Private Collection of Chester & Davida Herwitz

Sotheby's New York, Contemporary Indian Paintings: The Chester and Davida Herwitz Charitable Trust, 12 June 1995, lot 94

Private collection of William Selover, San Francisco

Thence by descent 

“Forest Boy is another first-timer. It is the very first painting I attempted to do in acrylic. I felt uncertain about my capacity to use the medium successfully. Since acrylic is water miscible, it can be used like one would use water color. But it can also be used as thick strokes. Trying both these ways in the same work, I was delighted to find that I could pit one way of working side by side against the other. The boy's head, neck, and shoulders are worked in middle thickness, the background is fluid water color. His afro hair style could now be worked out in a complex layering of overlapping colors and thicknesses, to evoke a rich, vigorous growth. Both the vulnerability and the strength of this tribal boy are evoked by this use of the medium. My first work in acrylic revealed to me the sheer versatility of acrylic as a medium. The decades following would see many more such attempts, further exploring the discoveries made in the course of doing this painting and directed towards varying ends." (Correspondence with the artist, January 2020)