Page 183 - Iconic Masters October2023

The artist’s drawing of planned panels for the ‘Oh My Dear Calcutta’ series.

Lot No. 151

JOGEN CHOWDHURY
b. 1939

OH MY DEAR CALCUTTA (PART V)
60 x 60 in (152.4 x 152.4 cm)
Acrylic on canvas
2012

` 30,00,000 - 40,00,000 | $ 35,294 - 47,059

Provenance: Property from a collection based in New Delhi.

This lot will be offered without a reserve.

The presented lot was originally part of a large-scale quality. His preoccupation with contorted bodies,
work titled ‘Oh My Dear Calcutta’ which spanned 25 expressive faces, and commentary on socio-political
feet and was composed of five panels. The panels issues is evident in this work. Although it doesn’t settle
all feature scenes that depict Jogen Chowdhury’s into a narrative, the characters seem to hold deep
interpretations of his memories of his hometown. They meaning for both the artist and the viewer. The work
are an ode to the rich culture and multiple facets of flows fluidly through being replete with symbolism and
the city of Kolkata. While the panels amalgamated to narration, a message relayer and hieroglyphics, making
narrate a larger story about the city, they also remain it complex and inviting.
self-reliant and coherent on their own. With their unique
compositional elements, each panel tells a tale of the Jogen Chowdhury was born in 1939 in pre-partition
Chowdhury’s Kolkata and are both independent and Bengal. He studied at the Government College of Art
cohesive. and Crafts, Kolkata from 1955 to 1960 and then went
onto L’Ecole Nationale Superior des Beax-Arts, Paris,
Executed in the artist’ signature style, the work displays on a scholarship from the French government in 1965.
his affinity for freely rendered figures made of bold lines He has been the recipient of several awards during
and caricature-like features. Each panel is constructed his career including the Kalidas Samman by the
with an impressive attention to detail with distorted Government of Madhya Pradesh in 2001 and the Banga
figures playing a large role in lending to its surreal Bibhushan award by the Government of West Bengal.