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Descriptif du lot
I work on two basic principles, one is celebration of humanism and two, a yearning for reaching beyond the quotidian and rejoicing in freedom and liberation.
- Meera Mukerjee, 1970
One of India’s most distinguished modern sculptors, Meera Mukherjee emerged onto the art scene at a time that was transitional, full of change and eclecticism. However, her background and training prepared her well for this milieu. Born in Calcutta in 1923, the artist first joined the Indian Society of Oriental Art in her hometown and then moved to Delhi Polytechnic, from which she graduated with a diploma in painting, graphic art and sculpture in 1951. She went on to work with the Indonesian modern artist Affandi, who was a visiting scholar at Santiniketan, and then, after her first solo exhibition in 1952, won a fellowship and moved to Munich to study at the Akademie der Bildenden Künste for three years.
Mukherjee also learned the traditional Dhokra “lost-wax,” or cire perdue, method of metal casting from metalworkers in Bastar, whose practices she studied and documented as a Senior Research Fellow at the Anthropological Survey of India. In the early 1960s, Mukherjee spent long periods in Bastar, home to indigenous Adivasi communities, where she studied metal casting with Ghadwa sculptors. This is a primary example of an Indian modernist learning from indigenous traditions and synthesizing traditional craft techniques into her own practice. This two-way process can also be seen in the increasingly individualized work of indigenous artists such as Jaidev Baghel. Recalling her time in Bastar, Mukherjee wrote, “I served a period of apprenticeship under the Bastar artisans. Working with these superb craftsmen, I could not suppress a thrill, to feel that the great Tanjore Bronzes were made by fingers such as theirs, and I was in their company. As I saw their dedicated effort with which they built holy images which men will revere and worship, I asked myself, can we artists, modern artists, not approach the work that we do in the same spirit? What if we, building the figure, not of a god but of more earthly things, not feel in such creation a similar spiritual unfolding?” (Artist statement, G. Lechner, ‘Notes from Germany’, Meera Mukherjee: Purity of Vision, Ahmedabad, 2018, p. 69).
Mukherjee perfected this dhokra technique for working with bronze that adapted this traditional method to contemporary subjects and themes. Her process “incorporates modelling, stringing and rolling of wax on an image core, which is followed by covering it by a clay mould, baking, and pouring of molten metal [...] Her works represent the moods of men and women in contemporary society in their various social and economic environments” (J. J. Nazary, ‘Some New Trends in Indian Sculpture’, Marg, Vol. 31, No. 2, March 1978, p. 83). The detailed bronze finish of her works consequently appears organic and malleable, imbuing each of her sculptures with lyricism and rhythm as they capture dynamic moments in time. “Meera’s world in bronze is full of movement. The viewers’ eyes do not only follow the flowing contours of the figures but also the patterns, lineatures and ornamentations animating the surfaces of her bronze sculptures. None of these figures is profane in the Western sense as all of them seem to be imbibed with something of the divine and to pulsate with flowing forces and energies” (C. Segieth, Remembering Meera Mukherjee, Bernried, 2012, p. 8).
In the present lot, titled Urban Disaster, Mukherjee displays her incredible technical prowess in capturing the collapse of tall buildings in an urban setting of her native Calcutta. Sanjukta Sunderason suggests it is an earthquake bringing together urban structures at a moment of disintegration and the large crowds of people who watch this happening. Here, the crowds are depicted as highly stylized constituent parts of a larger organic whole, as if the individuals have coalesced into a wave of humanity waiting to engulf the buildings. The apocalyptic note this work strikes clearly resonates today, in a world where wars and climate disasters have unfortunately become part of everyday life. It is significant that when asked what it was about Calcutta inspired her most, Mukherjee identified the city’s common people, who struggled each day yet persevered. She noted, “it is my inspiration that human beings survive despite such toil. This life force inspires me” (Artist statement, 7 April 1970, cited in S. Sunderason, ‘Sculpture of Undulating Lives’: Meera Mukherjee’s Arts of Motion,” Aziatische Kunst, vol. 50, no. 2, Amsterdam, 2020, p. 62). In Urban Disaster, the dense crowd can similarly be understood not simply as spectators, but as a collective embodiment of human endurance.
Urban Disaster is one of the finest examples of traditional techniques, modernist practice and contemporary themes represented in a singular form, and reveals how “Meera Mukherjee occupies a curious, critical place in the movements of postcolonial modernity in Indian art: she deftly and consciously assimilated the rural and the tribal which dominated art in the 1950s-1960s with the vibrantly active, dynamic urban awareness of the 1970s” (S. Sunderason, Ibid., Amsterdam, 2020, p. 62).
- Meera Mukerjee, 1970
One of India’s most distinguished modern sculptors, Meera Mukherjee emerged onto the art scene at a time that was transitional, full of change and eclecticism. However, her background and training prepared her well for this milieu. Born in Calcutta in 1923, the artist first joined the Indian Society of Oriental Art in her hometown and then moved to Delhi Polytechnic, from which she graduated with a diploma in painting, graphic art and sculpture in 1951. She went on to work with the Indonesian modern artist Affandi, who was a visiting scholar at Santiniketan, and then, after her first solo exhibition in 1952, won a fellowship and moved to Munich to study at the Akademie der Bildenden Künste for three years.
Mukherjee also learned the traditional Dhokra “lost-wax,” or cire perdue, method of metal casting from metalworkers in Bastar, whose practices she studied and documented as a Senior Research Fellow at the Anthropological Survey of India. In the early 1960s, Mukherjee spent long periods in Bastar, home to indigenous Adivasi communities, where she studied metal casting with Ghadwa sculptors. This is a primary example of an Indian modernist learning from indigenous traditions and synthesizing traditional craft techniques into her own practice. This two-way process can also be seen in the increasingly individualized work of indigenous artists such as Jaidev Baghel. Recalling her time in Bastar, Mukherjee wrote, “I served a period of apprenticeship under the Bastar artisans. Working with these superb craftsmen, I could not suppress a thrill, to feel that the great Tanjore Bronzes were made by fingers such as theirs, and I was in their company. As I saw their dedicated effort with which they built holy images which men will revere and worship, I asked myself, can we artists, modern artists, not approach the work that we do in the same spirit? What if we, building the figure, not of a god but of more earthly things, not feel in such creation a similar spiritual unfolding?” (Artist statement, G. Lechner, ‘Notes from Germany’, Meera Mukherjee: Purity of Vision, Ahmedabad, 2018, p. 69).
Mukherjee perfected this dhokra technique for working with bronze that adapted this traditional method to contemporary subjects and themes. Her process “incorporates modelling, stringing and rolling of wax on an image core, which is followed by covering it by a clay mould, baking, and pouring of molten metal [...] Her works represent the moods of men and women in contemporary society in their various social and economic environments” (J. J. Nazary, ‘Some New Trends in Indian Sculpture’, Marg, Vol. 31, No. 2, March 1978, p. 83). The detailed bronze finish of her works consequently appears organic and malleable, imbuing each of her sculptures with lyricism and rhythm as they capture dynamic moments in time. “Meera’s world in bronze is full of movement. The viewers’ eyes do not only follow the flowing contours of the figures but also the patterns, lineatures and ornamentations animating the surfaces of her bronze sculptures. None of these figures is profane in the Western sense as all of them seem to be imbibed with something of the divine and to pulsate with flowing forces and energies” (C. Segieth, Remembering Meera Mukherjee, Bernried, 2012, p. 8).
In the present lot, titled Urban Disaster, Mukherjee displays her incredible technical prowess in capturing the collapse of tall buildings in an urban setting of her native Calcutta. Sanjukta Sunderason suggests it is an earthquake bringing together urban structures at a moment of disintegration and the large crowds of people who watch this happening. Here, the crowds are depicted as highly stylized constituent parts of a larger organic whole, as if the individuals have coalesced into a wave of humanity waiting to engulf the buildings. The apocalyptic note this work strikes clearly resonates today, in a world where wars and climate disasters have unfortunately become part of everyday life. It is significant that when asked what it was about Calcutta inspired her most, Mukherjee identified the city’s common people, who struggled each day yet persevered. She noted, “it is my inspiration that human beings survive despite such toil. This life force inspires me” (Artist statement, 7 April 1970, cited in S. Sunderason, ‘Sculpture of Undulating Lives’: Meera Mukherjee’s Arts of Motion,” Aziatische Kunst, vol. 50, no. 2, Amsterdam, 2020, p. 62). In Urban Disaster, the dense crowd can similarly be understood not simply as spectators, but as a collective embodiment of human endurance.
Urban Disaster is one of the finest examples of traditional techniques, modernist practice and contemporary themes represented in a singular form, and reveals how “Meera Mukherjee occupies a curious, critical place in the movements of postcolonial modernity in Indian art: she deftly and consciously assimilated the rural and the tribal which dominated art in the 1950s-1960s with the vibrantly active, dynamic urban awareness of the 1970s” (S. Sunderason, Ibid., Amsterdam, 2020, p. 62).