How four Modernist masters shaped the vocabulary of art in the Indian subcontinent

Alongside political struggle to liberate the subcontinent from colonial rule, young Indian artists, too, led an often-overlooked struggle to free Indian art of western domination, to give it a unique identity of its own that we today know as modern Indian art. Four from that very important generation of diehard artists would have turned 100 this year — K. G. Subramanyan, Francis Newton Souza, Ram Kumar and Vasudeo Santu (VS) Gaitonde. In the world of modern Indian art, these anniversaries are landmarks because independently, and collectively with their peers, these artists shaped the vocabulary of the subcontinent’s art.

Masters of the Market

At least two of these names — Gaitonde and Souza — have a regular news recall for the record-breaking prices their works command at the auction circuit. In the fast-changing dynamics of the auction market, works by these two artists regularly set records, often broken either by their own works, or by works of a rare group of artists that command roughly 80% of the Indian art market; this group includes Amrita Sher-Gil, S. H. Raza, M. F. Husain and Tyeb Mehta, besides Souza and Gaitonde.

Sher-Gil’s The Story Teller is the most expensive Indian painting sold so far (for Rs 61.8 crore) — at a Saffronart auction in New Delhi in September 2023.   

Souza’s painting Birth had sold for $4.08 m at a Christie’s auction in September 2015, when it had become the most expensive Indian painting sold until then. More recently, on March 20 this year, his 1960 painting The Lovers sold for $4.89 m (approximately Rs 40.69 crore) at another Christie’s auction, becoming his most expensive work ever. It stands sixth in the list of 10 most expensive Indian paintings.

While works by Ram Kumar and K. G. Subramanyan don’t make headlines for stellar prices like Souza’s and Gaitonde’s, they do remain a top draw among collectors whenever they appear at auctions. The most expensive Ram Kumar work sold at an auction remains Vagabond, which fetched $1.1 m at a Christie’s auction in 2008; at current exchange rates, it stands at Rs 9.66 crore. As for Subramanyan, it would be a disservice to the genius of the artist to talk of his works in terms of their market value because as an artist, he steadfastly remained outside the marketplace.

Ideologues as Pathfinders

Auction prices do not make an artist, they make news headlines. An auction price, therefore, is not an indicator of an artist’s worth, though they do indicate a rather informed interest in their works by collectors, especially if prices consistently skirt the top margins of the market. Often, interest in the works of a superlative artist is generated by seminal exhibitions and discourses around his/ her art, as happened with Gaitonde.

He was already a legend in his lifetime, known for pushing the envelope for abstract art in India, but interest in his art was regenerated about a decade back, driven by the important exhibition, ‘V. S. Gaitonde: Painting as Process, Painting as Life’, held at the Guggenheim Museum in New York in 2014-15. It brought a fresh spotlight on the work of this low-profile artist — who did not have sensational charisma like Husain or the shocking value of Souza’s art — pushing his prices at the auctions through the roof. All it takes is a trigger for headlining an act, which even otherwise remains a valuable commodity on the market.

As fortunes of the Indian art market have proved in the past quarter of a century — when Indian works of art started commanding high prices at global auction —works of good quality, with great character, and gravitas to stand the test of time, always sell well, irrespective of the state of the market. This is where lies the importance of the art of Subramanyan, Kumar, Souza and Gaitonde. 

The macabre and unrepressed sexuality of Souza’s art often overshadows his pathbreaking act of founding the Progressive Artists’ Group in Bombay in 1947, roping in Raza, Husain, K. H. Ara, S. K. Bakre and H. A. Gade as its founder members. The time has borne out the importance of this group — its members remain the most sought-after signatures of Indian art till this date. Art historian Yashodhara Dalmia, who has curated the ongoing centenary exhibition, ‘Reminiscing Souza’ at Dhoomimal Gallery, New Delhi, says, “Besides being a very good artist, what worked for Souza was the fact that he was very concerned with the social situation and what was happening around him — corruption by those in power most concerned him, and by portraying that vividly, he was able to reach out to people.”

The Fantastic Four

Though Souza experimented with different genres and styles throughout his career, his art stood out for his distinctive figurative practice, comprising distorted, macabre figures, chiefly of Christian priests and female nudes but others as well. He was unabashed in displaying sexuality or sexual acts in his art which earned him the ire of authorities in India. His landscapes too carried a sense of distortion, which aligned well with contemporary modernist practices of Europe at that time.

Born in Goa on April 12, 1924, Souza went to Sir J. J. School of Art, Bombay, before being expelled for participating in the Quit India movement. He left India for England in 1949 where he lived for the next two decades before settling in New York in 1967. He visited India regularly and passed away in Mumbai on March 28, 2002.

The process of Gaitonde’s art that made him a genius was succinctly summed up by art critic Holland Cotter, while reviewing his Guggenheim exhibition for The New York Times. He wrote: “…give yourself over to some of the most magnetic abstract paintings of any kind in New York right now. It’s by a 20th-century Indian modernist who looked westward, eastward, homeward and inward to create an intensely personalized version of transculturalism, one that has given him mythic status in his own country and pushed him to the top of the auction charts.”

The works of Gaitonde that sell like hot cakes in the auction market are philosophical abstracts, often in tones of one colour. These formed the apogee of a career that began with figurative works, soon to be replaced by non-representational images. He preferred the term ‘nonobjective’ over ‘abstract’ for his paintings; his works appear like subliminal landscapes that merge into a faraway horizon, reflecting his sustained engagement with Zen Buddhism.   

Gaitonde, who was born in Nagpur on November 2, 1924, studied at Sir J. J. School of Art, Bombay, and was close to the Progressive members. An icon in his lifetime, the reticent artist shifted to New Delhi in the second half of his career, where he passed away on August 10, 2001.

Subramanyan’s legacy is that of a teacher who nurtured the ethos of Indian modernism in legions of students, conforming to the ideas of his own paintings which drew from myths, fables and traditional narratives of the country. He showed it was possible to make modern art with the syntax of traditional Indian arts and crafts, without saturating it with overt Indian-ness. A figurative artist, his canvases were peopled by mythological and folk characters, set in contemporary settings in his unique stylisation. His works were rich with details borrowed from India’s traditional arts and crafts, which he brought alive, not just on canvases but also on terracotta pottery, sculpture, murals and toys.

Popularly known as Mani da, Subramanyan was born in Kerala’s Palakkad district on February 15, 1924. He was studying economics at Presidency College, Madras, when he participated in the Quit India movement and was debarred from college. He headed to Visva Bharati University at Santiniketan, where he studied painting under Nandalal Bose, Benode Behari Mukherjee and Ramkinkar Baij. He started teaching at the Faculty of Fine Arts, M. S. University, Baroda, in 1951, where he would eventually settle down. He breathed his last on June 29, 2016, in Baroda. 

Ram Kumar, too, came to the arts after studying economics. A close adherent of the ideals of the Progressives, he forged a new identity for Indian abstraction when he embarked on a painting trip to Banaras with friend M. F. Husain. He painted abstract landscapes of Banaras, without people or its hive of activity, giving birth to an utterly modernist vocabulary.

Again, like his peers Raza or Gaitonde, Ram Kumar, too, began as a figurative artist making figures, landscapes and realist cityscapes, but after the trip to Banaras, people disappeared from his canvases. Soon, the landscapes too started getting distorted, and disintegrated to eventually make way for pure abstract landscapes, the art that he is best remembered for. 

Kumar was born in Shimla on September 23, 1924, and obtained a master’s in economics from St. Stephen’s college in New Delhi. He joined the Hindi newspaper Hindustan as a journalism trainee before turning to painting full-time. He wrote short stories in Hindi throughout his life (his younger brother Nirmal Verma became a stalwart of Hindi literature), while attaining heights as a visual artist. He died in New Delhi on April 14, 2018.

The testament of the achievements of this generation of artists lies in their continued domination of the Indian art horizon, whether in terms of inspiration for younger artists or in their market worth. They came into their own at a historically potent moment and seized the opportunity to leave an indelible mark on the country’s art. Contemporary artists have big boots to fill.