RABIN MONDAL (1932-2019)

Brothel-I

Details

RABIN MONDAL (1932-2019)
Brothel-I
signed 'Rabin Mondal' (on the reverse) and titled, inscribed and dated 'BROTHEL-I / OIL ON CANVAS / 110 x 84 cm / 1962' (on artist's label on the reverse)
oil on canvas
33 x 43 ¼ in. (83.8 x 109.9 cm.)
Painted in 1962

Provenance

Delhi Art Gallery, New Delhi
Acquired from the above by the present owner

Literature

S. Datta, After The Fall, Time, Life & Art of Rabin Mondal, New Delhi, 2005, p. 84 (illustrated)
R. Dean and G. Tillotson, eds., Modern Indian Painting: Jane & Kito de Boer Collection, Ahmedabad, 2019, p. 172 (illustrated)

Conditions of sale

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Lot Essay

Rabin Mondal's "Cubo-Futuristic experiments with human forms and pictorial space came out in two important paintings [Brothel I & II]. Suddenly violent quarrels break the tenuous peace in sleazy brothels. The verbal violence soon lapses into free fights between the inmates and their patron. The pictorial space with its dynamic corrugation of the surface breaks into the cubist-inspired stylised human forms, vertically slotting the melee of limbs, heads and torsos. The treatment is strongly suggestive of violent futuristic movement." (S. Datta, After The Fall, Time, Life & Art of Rabin Mondal, New Delhi, 2005, p. 79)

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