Footnotes

Provenance
Private UK Collection;
Acquired from a charity auction.

Compare
For a similar work, sold at SaffronArt see, Evening Sale, New Delhi, 20th September 2018, lot 67.

Vaikuntam was born in Telangana (formerly Andhra Pradesh), and obtained a Diploma in Painting from the College of Fine Arts and Architecture in Hyderabad, and then pursued further studies in Painting and Printmaking under the tutelage of K.G. Subramanyan at the Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda. His works are inspired by the rural women of Telangana, with whom he has had a lifelong fascination. This intrigue can be traced to the travelling theatre groups of his childhood, when the male artists would impersonate female characters. The muses in his works are voluptuous and sensuous and are adorned with ornaments, vermilion bindis and draped in colourful sarees of reds, saffrons, greens and blues as can be seen in the present lot.

Vaikuntam had his first solo exhibition in 1973, at the Kala Bhavan in Hyderabad and has gone on to exhibit worldwide since. Some notable shows include, 'The Telangana Icons' presentd by Art Alive Gallery, New Delhi at Grosvenor Gallery, London in 2015, 'Post Independence Masters' at Aicon Gallery, New York in 2008, '6 Artists Show' at 1x1 Gallery, Dubai in 2006 and 'Tradition and Change' at Arts India, New York in 2002. He has also been the receipt of various awards, the 1993 National Award for Painting, being the most recent.