Untitled

Tyeb Mehta, now lauded as one of India's greatest artists, began his career as a filmmaker. An early introduction to the workings of the Bombay Progressives Artists Group, however, soon led him to painting; with Mehta finding inspiration in the group's radical decision to meld the stylistic devices of Western Modernism with distinctly Indian themes. Mehta took numerous cues from Western artists and his 1960s work owes a stylistic debt to the tormented and vitriolic canvases of Francis Bacon. The figure has remained a central focus in Tyeb Mehta's oeuvre for the last five decades. While stylistic elements and his formal techniques have changed over time, his penchant for depicting solitary figures placed squarely in the centre of the canvas has remained. Exposure to the European painting style, instigated by a visit to England in 1959, resulted in his Impressionistic brush work seen in this painting. Relying upon vibrant and animated paint application in the place of the carefully delineated outlines of his later work, Mehta's figures are dynamic and charged. This technique is indicative of what the creative process signifies for him; the figure is not part of a narrative but represents the emotional content of the painting.