collectors corner - gobardhan ash

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Born in 1907 in India, Gobardhan Ash studied at the Fine Arts Government School of Arts in Kolkata between 1926 and 1930 and at the Government School of Arts and Crafts in Chennai in 1932. He was appointed Chief Artist at the Indian institute of Arts and Industry in Kolkata in 1946, where he stayed for two years, until 1948. In 1953, he became a Senior Teacher at the Indian Art School of Kolkata, where he stayed another two years, before founding the Fine Art Mission of Begumpur in 1956.He then started his career as an independent artist and remained so until he death in 1996. His many awards include the First Prize of the Madras Academy of Fine Arts (1983), Silver Medals from form the Progressive Writers and Artists Association and from the Delhi Fine Arts Society, and Cash Awards from the Academy of Fine Arts in Kolkata (1937) and from the Art Heritage of New Delhi (1985). Regarded as a pioneer of modern Indian art, Ash’s contribution at the time when India witnessed the advent of Western modernism is significant and colossal. His work was exploratory, visionary and inspiring. He printed with bold courage and a free spirit, never yielding to the rules set by official art. He rejected the preconceived notions of how an artist ought to render his subjects and inevitably rebelled against the academic rules “ If we look at nature in the open, we do not see individual objects each with its own colors but rather a bright medley of tints which blend in our eyes, in our minds.” – Gobardhan Ash (The Statesman, April 24, 1994). His verbal imagery alluded to what was real and relevant in India yet transcended to communicate a deeper, universal message about the human spirit. Disillusioned with the limits and constraints he faced, Ash withdrew into his private introspective world to explore his own mode of artistic expression. And although it was the convention then to paint divinities or exotic female figures on their way to the temple, Ash embarked on a new approach altogether to paint farmers toiling in the fields, workers engaged in intense labor to earn their hiving, thereby setting a new trend of socio-realistic art in India. In 1945, Ash was brought into the public eye when the progressive writers Association discovered his series of paintings on the Bengal famine. The paintings depict, if not document, the ravages of the 1943 catastrophe. In juxtaposition to the famine series, his impressionist and post impressionist gouaches during the late 40s come as an interesting antithesis. Colors, rich and vibrant, come alive in a pulsating tone to dominate the entire painting. Ash never subscribed to a stringent artistic form or technique. Rather, his works from the 80s display yet another intriguing and jarringly different style in his treatment of portraiture. His colors, with the exception of the apparent outlines, are reduced to smudges and smears so that the painting appear to originate from stained canvas. His subjects, spectral figures that engage and draw us within their profound state of despair and helplessness. To characterise the life works of Gobardhan Ash is to recognise the complexity and spontaneity of his ideas and the enormous richness of his style. An artist who devoted his entire life to art, his paintings have transited and evolved from monochromatic sketches and landscape to portraiture; from naturalistic real-life depictions to abstract expressionism. Whatever the genre style-Ash has demonstrated an eloquent mastery over the diverse style, techniques and medias employed, as evident in the vast retrospective collection. His paintings are conceptual and purposeful, displaying a unique individuality. His art expounds a frank desire to convey the value of uncompromising artistic sincerity. Gobardhan Ash remains today a prolific artist of his time.

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