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Mohan Samant (Indian, 1924-2004)Untitled
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Mohan Samant (Indian, 1924-2004)
inscribed Mohan Samant '76 on reverse
oil, watercolour and sand on canvas
169 x 197cm (66 9/16 x 77 9/16in).
Footnotes
Provenance
Private New York Collection.
Gifted directly from the above to the present owner.
Born in Goregaon, Maharashtra in 1924, Samant trained at the Sir J.J School of Art under Shankar Balwant Pasikar and graduated in 1952. From the outset of his career, Samant exhibited his work alongside his fellow Indian modernists, in seminal shows such as Progressive Artists' Group: Gaitonde, Raiba, Ara, Hazarnis, Khanna, Husain, Samant, Gade' at Bombay's Jehangir Art Gallery in 1953 and Eight Painters: Bendre, Gaitonde, Gujral, Husain, Khanna, Kulkarni, Kumar, Samant, curated by Thomas Keehn in New Delhi in 1956.
Samant is known for an incredibly diverse body of work. He derived inspiration from a wide variety of sources – including the cave paintings of Lascaux and Pre-Columbian ceramics – and has boldly experimented with mixed media, incorporating acrylic, oil, wire and sand on his canvases. The present lot is an illustration of these influences and is perhaps best explained by Samant himself when he says: : '[...] I fuse the symbols of Hindu mythology and ancient Egyptian wall paintings with the modern-day art world of New York City. My aesthetic relationship to the vast, visual resources from antiquity to the present day has helped form my unique style of painting and serves to provide an ongoing stimulus to its continuous development.' (speaking in 1997, quoted in Y. Dalmia, The Making of Modern Indian Art: the Progressives, New Delhi 2001, p. 69).
For a similar work sold in these rooms, see Bonhams, Dubai, Modern and Contemporary Arab, Iranian, Indian and Pakistani Art, 3rd March 2008, lot 97.

