
Priya Singh
Head of Department
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Sold for £1,792 inc. premium
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Head of Department

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Provenance
Property from a private collection, UK.
Haldar was one of the foremost figures of the Bengal Renaissance, a movement that sought to reimagine Indian artistic identity in dialogue with both classical traditions and modern currents. A painter, educator, and innovator, Haldar was deeply committed to uniting poetry and the visual arts, producing a remarkable body of work that gave pictorial form to literature ranging from Tagore to ancient epics.
His series of illustrations for the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam reflects this vision with particular sensitivity. Comprising twelve works, the series translates Khayyam's meditations on love, mortality, and the fleeting beauty of existence into imagery suffused with Mughal and Persian stylistic inflections. Haldar renders men and women in lyrical natural settings, their elongated forms, flowing garments, and decorative surroundings evoking the elegance of miniature traditions while imbuing them with a modern, romantic sensibility.
These illustrations exemplify Haldar's ability to bridge text and image, East and West, past and present. In giving form to the Rubaiyat, he not only interprets the verses but also extends their resonance, situating them within a uniquely Indian modernist idiom. The series stands as a testament to his central role in the Bengal Renaissance and to his lifelong pursuit of a synthesis between word, spirit, and image.