Page 54 - Manifest September 2024

Lot No. 25

ARPITA SINGH

b. 1937
UNTITLED
23.8 x 17.8 in (60.4 x 45.2 cm)
Watercolour on paper
1992
Signed & Dated: Top Right
` 15,00,000 - 20,00,000 | $ 18,293 - 24,390
Published: ‘Arpita Singh’ by Vadehra Art Gallery, 2015, pg. 108
Provenance: Property from a collection based in Mumbai

Born in 1937 in what is now Bangladesh, Arpita Singh earned her
diploma in Fine Arts at the Delhi Polytechnic before taking up a
position as a designer at the Weaver’s Service Centres in Kolkata and
New Delhi. Each of Arpita Singh’s drawings, watercolours on paper,
and oils on canvas tells a story. To describe this renowned artist’s
work as merely narrative would be a significant understatement.
Engaged with the issues faced daily by women in her country and
globally, Singh portrays the wide range of emotions she shares
with these subjects – from sorrow to joy, from suffering to hope –
providing insight into the ongoing dialogue she maintains with them.
The artist’s colours are vibrant, her palette often dominated by pinks
and blues, and her paintings overflow with a multitude of life forms
and objects or motifs such as guns, cars, planes, animals, trees, and
flowers. Though described as a figurative artist and a modernist,
Arpita Singh remains attuned to traditional Indian art forms and
aesthetics, such as miniature painting and various forms of folk art,
which she regularly incorporates into her work. The way she employs
perspective and narrative in her art is deeply rooted in miniature
traditions and directly reflects her background.

Cover of the publication with the work illustrated