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Lot Details

Signed and dated in Bengali twice (lower center left and lower right)

PROVENANCE
Aakriti Art Gallery, Kolkata

PUBLISHED
Masterpieces 2016: Private Sale Catalogue, Aakriti Art Gallery, 2016, pg. 35 (illustrated)

Lalu Prasad Shaw is a self-trained artist who emerged as one of the leading figures among Indian graphic artists during the resurgence of printmaking in the late sixties. He made a name for himself both in India and abroad, winning acclaim, accolades and cementing himself as one of the best in the field. More than printmaking, he is also one of the few painters who led Bengal art in a new direction when Indian art was in dire need of a fresh beginning.

It was during the early 1970s when he joined Kala Bhavana as a faculty member that his art took to this new direction of painting after getting inspired by Company Period Lucknow temperas. This switch to an entirely new idiom and media was a stretch from the abstract graphics that he did for long; however, it did not clash with his pursuit of figuration.

In the picture, the lady is standing with a gentle gesture while enjoying a quiet time of leisure. She exudes an air of elegance and refinement seen in her posture, accessories, and entire demeanor. The portrait is achieved with bright flat colors and tidy lines while confined within borders, an idiom fashioned from diverse sources of native pictorial tradition. As with his early temperas, there is an obvious reference to the Bengal School but evolved to bear the imprint of a modernist sensibility.

Text Reference:
Manasij Majumder, Lalu Prasad Shaw: A Dual Discourse, The Fine Art Advisory, Dubai, unpaginated

Lalu Prasad Shaw

(b. 1937)
Born in 1937, in erstwhile Bengal, Lalu Prasad Shaw received a Diploma in painting from the Government College of Arts and Crafts, Kolkata, in 1959. He has exhibited extensively in India and abroad since 1956, and some of his most recent solo shows include ‘Looking in’ at Galerie 88, Kolkata, in 2011-12; ‘Graceful Silence’ and ‘Sepia Notes’ at Art Musings, Mumbai, in 2011 and 2007; ‘The Myriad Minded Artist’ at Gallery Sanskriti, Kolkata, in 2008; and ‘Painting’ at the Centre for International Modern Art (CIMA), Kolkata, in 1995. His work has also been featured in several group shows, and he has participated in art festivals and fairs all over the world since 1956. Shaw has received many awards, including the West Bengal State Lalit Kala Akademi Award in 1959, and the Birla Academy Award, Kolkata, in 1975-78. The artist lives and works in Kolkata.