An oil painting by Vasudeo S. Gaitonde sold for Rs.29.3 crore in December at an auction by Christie’s in Mumbai. No one had paid that much for a work by an Indian artist till then.
The value of Gaitonde’s works has been recently re-discovered by the art world, decades after the period when he was most active. Labelled as a reticent recluse, the artist’s life however remained a mystery of sorts as he opened up only to a close group of people.
Despite being a member of the progressive artists’ group that included the likes of F. N. Souza, S. H. Raza and M. F. Husain, all of whom have constantly been in the limelight, not much was written or documented about India’s most valued abstractionist. In fact, the 1924 born artist was known to guard his privacy rather fiercely.
In 1999, Jesal Thacker, a student of the Sir J.J. School of Art, was asked to study one modern Indian painter for an assignment when her eyes fell on a lustrous orange-yellow painting by Gaitonde. Though she craved to know more about him, there was hardly any information on the artist, who died in 2001. This set her on a quest to learn more about Gaitonde.
Now, after years of research, the puzzles of his life have come together in a book titled “Vasudeo Santu Gaitonde: Sonata of Solitude”, conceptualised by Jesal and written by Meera Menezes.
The book is a factual document on Gaitonde’s life, including stories both known and unknown from his childhood days through his formative years at the Sir J. J. School of Art, his struggles, friendships with other artists, life abroad and eventually taking leave of the family to permanently settle in Delhi. It even includes information on his tough days in Delhi after an accident in the mid-1980s that affected his spinal cord, leaving his neck tilted at an awkward angle for the rest of his life.
The book has pictures from Gaitonde’s life, letters by him to other artists that paints a vivid picture of the times and what the art scene in the country was like when the modern masters were just starting out. The book also details the friendship and camaraderie shared by these celebrated artists.
Jesal feels there is more to Gaitonde than the market value of his art, that his paintings contain so much more than what meets the eye. Her foundation, Bodhana Arts and Research Foundation, which has published the book, combines anecdotal recollections and facts to piece together Gaitonde’s life. Meera said the main reason behind her writing the book was to create a better understanding of the man, his artistic trajectory and his seminal contribution to the idiom of contemporary Indian art.
The book is the first in a three-part Sonata series. It will be followed a second volume titled “Vasudeo Santu Gaitonde: Sonata of Light”. Authored by Roshan Shahani and Narendra Dengle, the books positions Gaitonde within a watershed moment of contemporary Indian art. The final book of the series, “Vasudeo Santu Gaitonde: Sonata of Consciousness,” co-authored by international art critic and cultural theorist G. Roger Denson and Narendra Dengle, is a comparative study between the oeuvre of Gaitonde and the aesthetics of visual art, the mythology of creation or the cosmogony and varied philosophies that surfaced themselves in the corresponding period worldwide.
The book is priced at Rs.5,500. It will be followed up later this year with an exhibition of Gaitonde’s works.
