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拍品专文
Jehangir Sabavala was born into a distinguished Parsi family in Bombay in 1922. Following a childhood spent travelling the world with his family and his early schooling in Switzerland and India, Sabavala enrolled at Elphinstone College in Bombay to study English Literature. In 1942, he transferred to the Sir J.J. School of Art in Bombay to follow his nascent interest in painting, which was nurtured by the principal Charles Gerrard and talented artists like Dhupeshwarkar and Ahiwasi who taught him anatomy, life drawing, time drawing and other skills that would prove invaluable in his artistic career.
After Sabavala received a diploma in fine arts from the Sir J.J. School of Art in 1944, and the conclusion of the Second World War the following year, he moved to Europe for a period of intensive training in London at the Heatherly School of Art and then in Paris at the Académie Julian and Académie André Lhote. During these years, Sabavala found himself negotiating “two schools of thought, the one conservative, the other modern. The student was left to learn what he could from these contending elements. After this, several years were spent under impressionist masters and more of rigorous apprenticeship with that brilliant cubist pedagogue the late André Lhote, a master of refined analysis and caustic judgement [...] the ‘40s were for me a period of concentrated study and assimilation in the ateliers, the galleries and the museums of Europe.” (Artist statement, ‘My Work and Attitudes to Painting’, The Onlooker Annual, 1968)
Painted at the culmination of this formative period in the artist’s career, just before his return to India, this still life represents the impact Sabavala’s training in Europe had on his style and technique. One of the earliest paintings by the artist to be offered for sale, it simultaneously underscores Sabavala’s emerging concerns about crafting a personal idiom that incorporated this training with his identity as a modern Indian painter. The objects in this skilfully executed painting, with its clear nod to Cézanne and the post-impressionists, illuminate the artist’s concern for colour and light that resonate with the Paris School. In a subtle affirmation of his roots, however, here the champagne bottle, pitcher and apples are placed against a richly decorated Kashmiri shawl, softly draped from a trellis in the background.
Speaking about this painting five decades after he painted it, Sabavala noted how important it was in documenting his trajectory as an artist. “I painted Still Life with Apples in Paris in 1949. I was just finishing my studies. I consider it one of my best works. I then exhibited the painting in Bombay in 1951 or 1953 [...] it soon won the Walter Langhammer Award, one of the most prestigious honours for a work then. Walter Langhammer, an Austrian painter, is one of the seminal names that started the progressive movement and worked with The Times of India.” (Artist statement, Mumbai Mirror, 15 May 2007, p. 4)
After Sabavala received a diploma in fine arts from the Sir J.J. School of Art in 1944, and the conclusion of the Second World War the following year, he moved to Europe for a period of intensive training in London at the Heatherly School of Art and then in Paris at the Académie Julian and Académie André Lhote. During these years, Sabavala found himself negotiating “two schools of thought, the one conservative, the other modern. The student was left to learn what he could from these contending elements. After this, several years were spent under impressionist masters and more of rigorous apprenticeship with that brilliant cubist pedagogue the late André Lhote, a master of refined analysis and caustic judgement [...] the ‘40s were for me a period of concentrated study and assimilation in the ateliers, the galleries and the museums of Europe.” (Artist statement, ‘My Work and Attitudes to Painting’, The Onlooker Annual, 1968)
Painted at the culmination of this formative period in the artist’s career, just before his return to India, this still life represents the impact Sabavala’s training in Europe had on his style and technique. One of the earliest paintings by the artist to be offered for sale, it simultaneously underscores Sabavala’s emerging concerns about crafting a personal idiom that incorporated this training with his identity as a modern Indian painter. The objects in this skilfully executed painting, with its clear nod to Cézanne and the post-impressionists, illuminate the artist’s concern for colour and light that resonate with the Paris School. In a subtle affirmation of his roots, however, here the champagne bottle, pitcher and apples are placed against a richly decorated Kashmiri shawl, softly draped from a trellis in the background.
Speaking about this painting five decades after he painted it, Sabavala noted how important it was in documenting his trajectory as an artist. “I painted Still Life with Apples in Paris in 1949. I was just finishing my studies. I consider it one of my best works. I then exhibited the painting in Bombay in 1951 or 1953 [...] it soon won the Walter Langhammer Award, one of the most prestigious honours for a work then. Walter Langhammer, an Austrian painter, is one of the seminal names that started the progressive movement and worked with The Times of India.” (Artist statement, Mumbai Mirror, 15 May 2007, p. 4)