Notes

LOT ESSAY Inspired to paint by his uncles Abanindranath and Gaganendranath Tagore, Jamini Prakash Gangooly took an interest in art in his youth. He studied portraiture and landscape painting while training privately under British artist Charles Palmer, before enrolling at the City Collegiate School and then the Metropolitan Institution in Calcutta, now known as Vidyasagar College. The artist became adept at using principles of European academic realism and techniques of oil painting to render scenes from his native Bengal, earning him respect amongst his contemporaries. In 1907, Gangooly co-founded the Indian Society of Oriental Art with his uncles, and in 1916, after Abanindranath Tagore left the Calcutta Art School, Gangooly was appointed its Vice-Principal, a position he held until 1928. As a teacher, Gangooly emphasized the understanding of color, encouraging his students to use handmade pigments to accurately capture the scenes they portrayed. Celebrated as a painter and teacher, Gangooly’s work was widely published in literary and artistic journals of the time, and he received several awards from institutions such as the Bombay Art Society and the Simla Art Society. Known for his landscape paintings of the Himalayas, particularly around Kanchenjunga, and the rivers of Bengal, Gangooly earned himself the nickname ‘Painter of Padma’ for his large body of work depicting sunset over the River Padma. He also came to be popular in the courts of several of India’s princely states, who’s ruling families commissioned him to paint numerous portraits which remain in aristocratic collections across India. Gangooly’s mastery of color, light and shadow made dawn or dusk his preferred setting, as the complex lighting conditions at these times of day allowed him to fully demonstrate his command over the medium and his uncanny ability to exactly reproduce the way light reflects off surfaces like water. The Mughal architectural subject of the present lot makes for a unique inclusion in an oeuvre dominated by sweeping landscapes that celebrated nature. However, the artist’s skills are expertly displayed in this dawn scene, where the Taj Mahal and its adjoining mosque are seen from across the Yamuna River, their reflections glinting in its still waters. READ MORE