.jpg?w=1)
.jpg?w=1)
Lot Essay
Following his academic training and apprenticeships in London and Paris, Jehangir Sabavala returned to India in 1951. In the years that followed, the artist struggled to develop an artistic vocabulary that reconciled the opposing demands of the Impressionist and Cubist traditions in which he had become proficient, and his Indian environs. His biographer, Ranjit Hoskote, describes this period as a “private journey of re-discovery” for the artist, explaining that “Sabavala employed the 1950s in testing his Cubist education against the patterns of his experience: would it hold, could it be extended and modified?” (R. Hoskote, The Crucible of Painting: The Art of Jehangir Sabavala, Mumbai, 2005, p. 62).
In 1957, Sabavala revisited Europe with his wife Shirin, making stops in England, France, Italy and the Netherlands among other countries. Many of the cities the couple visited were still recovering from the devastation of the Second World War, and Sabavala’s encounters with this destruction helped clarify and emphasize some of his artistic concerns. In his work from the 1950s, Hoskote continues, “he is preoccupied by time and mortality, by the paradoxical transience and resilience of beauty, by the inevitability and yet the surprise of the seasonal cycles” (R. Hoskote, Ibid., 2005, p. 71).
Sabavala engaged with these concerns in his artistic ‘journey of re-discovery’ in a series of vivid paintings of nature, perhaps hoping that by capturing these moments he could freeze time and preserve beauty in a stand against violence and destruction. Drawing from his early still life paintings that often featured magnolias, tulips, lilies, bougainvillea and other eye-catching blooms, in this almost abstract composition from 1959, the artist surrounds a central group of pink flowers with hovering butterflies. Blue, green and yellow wings overlapping, the butterflies seem to be both competing for the sweet nectar that the dazzling blossoms promise, and shielding their fragile beauty from the world beyond the frame. Experimenting with the unique versions of Cubism and Japonisme that he distilled, Sabavala endows this highly stylized painting with subtle lyricism as well as a sense of opulence and drama. Like a stained-glass window prismatically filtering sunlight, this composition glows from within, its heightened colors and magnified subjects transporting viewers away from their everyday lives into the extraordinary, if only for a moment.
Writing about this formative period of the artist’s career, A.S. Raman concisely summed up the virtuosic balance between the West and India, academic discipline and individual freedom, and artistic ‘authenticity’ and tradition that such works represent. He wrote, “Among the few serious, solitary Indian painters, Jehangir Sabavala has an honoured place […] Sabavala infuses a lyrical and exotic flavour into his canvases which are authentic without being patently traditional. His manner of building up his compositions plane by plane and the subtle harmonies of his palette bear testimony to virtuosity and sensitivity of a high order” (A.S. Raman, ‘The Art of Jehangir Sabavala’, The Illustrated Weekly of India, 23 November, 1958).
This painting, one of the last Sabavala painted in this distinct style before turning to a more muted palette and subtler subjects in the early 1960s, was also likely used by the artist as inspiration for a large format mural he was tasked to design for a corporate office that year. This vivid painting was acquired by Guy and Sheila Simmons, who were great friends of the artist and his wife Shirin, and has remained in their family collection since then. The Simmons met the Sabavalas through common friends in Bombay, where Guy was posted as a diplomat from 1958-1960. Sharing intellectual and artistic interests as well their cosmopolitan outlook, the two couples built a strong, lasting friendship. Over the next decade and a few more postings in the Subcontinent, the families saw each other regularly in Bombay, and also in Delhi and London when Shirin, Jehangir and their daughter Aafreed traveled there. After the Simmons left India, they kept in in touch with the Sabavalas through letters and news from mutual friends, and met during visits to India in the 1970s and 80s. Proudly displayed in their homes over various postings for more than five decades, Butterflies over Pink Blossoms is testament to the important place India held in their lives, and to the warm relationship the families shared that transcended time and national borders.
In 1957, Sabavala revisited Europe with his wife Shirin, making stops in England, France, Italy and the Netherlands among other countries. Many of the cities the couple visited were still recovering from the devastation of the Second World War, and Sabavala’s encounters with this destruction helped clarify and emphasize some of his artistic concerns. In his work from the 1950s, Hoskote continues, “he is preoccupied by time and mortality, by the paradoxical transience and resilience of beauty, by the inevitability and yet the surprise of the seasonal cycles” (R. Hoskote, Ibid., 2005, p. 71).
Sabavala engaged with these concerns in his artistic ‘journey of re-discovery’ in a series of vivid paintings of nature, perhaps hoping that by capturing these moments he could freeze time and preserve beauty in a stand against violence and destruction. Drawing from his early still life paintings that often featured magnolias, tulips, lilies, bougainvillea and other eye-catching blooms, in this almost abstract composition from 1959, the artist surrounds a central group of pink flowers with hovering butterflies. Blue, green and yellow wings overlapping, the butterflies seem to be both competing for the sweet nectar that the dazzling blossoms promise, and shielding their fragile beauty from the world beyond the frame. Experimenting with the unique versions of Cubism and Japonisme that he distilled, Sabavala endows this highly stylized painting with subtle lyricism as well as a sense of opulence and drama. Like a stained-glass window prismatically filtering sunlight, this composition glows from within, its heightened colors and magnified subjects transporting viewers away from their everyday lives into the extraordinary, if only for a moment.
Writing about this formative period of the artist’s career, A.S. Raman concisely summed up the virtuosic balance between the West and India, academic discipline and individual freedom, and artistic ‘authenticity’ and tradition that such works represent. He wrote, “Among the few serious, solitary Indian painters, Jehangir Sabavala has an honoured place […] Sabavala infuses a lyrical and exotic flavour into his canvases which are authentic without being patently traditional. His manner of building up his compositions plane by plane and the subtle harmonies of his palette bear testimony to virtuosity and sensitivity of a high order” (A.S. Raman, ‘The Art of Jehangir Sabavala’, The Illustrated Weekly of India, 23 November, 1958).
This painting, one of the last Sabavala painted in this distinct style before turning to a more muted palette and subtler subjects in the early 1960s, was also likely used by the artist as inspiration for a large format mural he was tasked to design for a corporate office that year. This vivid painting was acquired by Guy and Sheila Simmons, who were great friends of the artist and his wife Shirin, and has remained in their family collection since then. The Simmons met the Sabavalas through common friends in Bombay, where Guy was posted as a diplomat from 1958-1960. Sharing intellectual and artistic interests as well their cosmopolitan outlook, the two couples built a strong, lasting friendship. Over the next decade and a few more postings in the Subcontinent, the families saw each other regularly in Bombay, and also in Delhi and London when Shirin, Jehangir and their daughter Aafreed traveled there. After the Simmons left India, they kept in in touch with the Sabavalas through letters and news from mutual friends, and met during visits to India in the 1970s and 80s. Proudly displayed in their homes over various postings for more than five decades, Butterflies over Pink Blossoms is testament to the important place India held in their lives, and to the warm relationship the families shared that transcended time and national borders.