PRESS RELEASE*
Highlights from the Herwitz and Aicon Gallery Collection
Works by Anjolie Ela Menon, M F Husain, F N Souza, K Laxma Goud and Sadequain
FROM THE VAULT
Aicon Gallery, London
20 July – 2 September 2007
Opening reception, July 20, 6-9pm
In 2002 a substantial part of the renowned Herwitz Collection, acknowledged as the finest private collection of post-independence Indian Art in the world, was acquired by Aicon Gallery. Formerly owned by the late Chester and Davida Herwitz, the collection traces the development of many of Indian's modern masters and established artists, spanning several decades, from the 1950s onwards. From the Vault brings together works from both the Herwitz Collection and the Aicon Gallery Collection. Featuring five exceptional artists - modern masters M. F. Husain, F. N. Souza, established contemporary artists Laxma Goud and Anjolie Ela Menon, and the celebrated calligrapher and painter, Sadequain - the exhibition will provide unique highlights of work by this rare cluster of artists.
Francis Newton Souza (1924-2002) and Maqbool Fida Husain (b.1915) were amongst the first avant-garde artists from India to achieve widespread recognition in the West. In 1947 Souza established the Bombay Progressive Artists' Group to encourage Indian artists to participate in the international avant-garde. As founding members Souza and Husain made a vital contribution to the contemporary art movement in India by consciously seeking a new idiom to describe the Indian reality immediately following the country's independence.
Described as the 'Picasso of India', M. F. Husain is today India's most renowned and prolific contemporary artist. Husain's work assimilates both bold and expressive brushwork derived from European modern art but also the traditional conventions of Indian art – the symbolic use of colour and spatial divisions of miniature painting, distinct stances from classical sculpture and the simplifications and distortions from folk heritage. The works on display span virtually his entire career, from the period in which he first came to prominence during the 1950s, seen in works such as Four Figures (1950s), to Victory (2006) featuring his famous heroic horses.
F. N. Souza's paintings, both tender and at times brutal, often bear the influence of his Catholic background and his complex relationship with the church. Female nudes provide an erotic element to his art, often displaying a blatant and aggressive sexuality, whilst still lifes and landscapes recur with shifting emphasis throughout his career. Works such as Man With Apples (1996) represent a continuation of the experiments with a technique of chemical alteration that Souza began to explore in the 1960s. Drawing and painting over magazine images that had been manipulated and dissolving with special solvents, these liberating acts of destruction could be said to epitomize Souza's rebellious attitude to his art.
The erotic vitality of the southern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh is a theme explored in much of Laxma Goud's work. Typically men and women encounter one another in a forest. Their sexuality is reflected in the verdant landscapes where organic forms are imbued with latent eroticism. Born in 1940 in Andhra Padesh, Laxma Goud received his diploma from the Government College of Art and Architecture in Hyderabad before going on to study mural painting at MS University in Baroda. An exceptional draughtsman, the austere and dislocated contours of his earlier works later give way to sensuous and eloquent strokes that explore elements of fantasy. Mythic beasts are entwined with human figures to form hybrid monsters in images that border on a Surrealist dream.
Anjolie Ela Menon (b.1940) is considered to be one of the leading female Indian artists working today. Her paintings are distinguished by their luminous surfaces and haunting quality in which references to memory, nostalgia and loss can frequently be found. She studied at the Sir J.J. School of Arts in Bombay, the Delhi University, and in Paris at the Ecole des Beaux Arts. The elongated faces and darkened eyes of her figures reveal the influence of European Christian art, in particular medieval icons. The sense of melancholy and the elusive passage of time are enhanced by the use of visual motifs such as hovering crows, vacant chairs and lone figures within framed windows.
The Pakistani artist, Sadequain (1930-1987) is considered one of the finest painters and calligraphers Pakistan has ever produced. Regarded as responsible for the renaissance of Islamic Calligraphy in Pakistan since the late 1960s, his skillful draftsmanship and imaginative visual vocabulary transformed the art into bold and uninhibited expressionist paintings. The civic activism that was a hallmark of Sadequain's politically charged canvases arose during his early experience of painting nationalistic slogans in Delhi on the eve of the Indian partition. Developing a personal iconography that was a complex blend of Hindu and Muslim philosophy, he turned to Eastern and Western artistic traditions, such as figurative art and calligraphy. His unique contorted figurative style was derived from thorny cacti that he observed growing at Gadani. Sadequain was also a respected poet who illustrated the poems of other reformist Pakistani thinkers such as Faiz Ahmad Faiz.
The diverse techniques and subject matter of the works assembled – the exuberant, heroic style of M.F. Husain, the bold and experimental works of F. N. Souza, Laxma Goud's latent sexuality, the haunting and mysterious paintings of Anjolie Ela Menon and Sadequain's powerful and vigorous figures - demonstrate the sheer scale, variety and vibrancy of contemporary Indian art that in recent years has come to prominence on the world stage.
Special Event: Thursday 19 July at 7.30pm
'Perspectives on the Herwitz Collection' - a conversation with Professor Partha Mitter, Emeritus Professor of History of Art at the University of Sussex
For further press information and visuals, please contact
Rhiannon Pickles on rhiannonpickles@mac.com Tel: +44 20 7096 8809 / mobile: +31 6158 21202 or
Kate Church on katechurch@mac.com Tel: +44 20 7737 0911.
Aicon Gallery is open Tues- Sat, 11am - 7pm; Sunday, 12pm - 5pm.
Tel: +44 20 7734 7575 / email: london@aicongallery.com
Editors' Notes
The Herwitz's love for Indian Art began over 45 years ago when, in 1961, the couple started visiting India on business. As the largest and most comprehensive collection of modern Indian art, the Herwitz Collection traces the development of many of India's modern masters and established artists including M.F. Husain, F.N. Souza and Laxma Goud. The Herwitzs began to collect M.F. Husain's works in 1966, and at Husain's urging, a vast number of other Indian contemporary works. It is estimated that they collected approximately 6,000 paintings, drawings, watercolors and prints, making their collection both the largest and most famous in the United States.