Untitled

In a long career marked by successful experiments in various mediums and genres—including designing the award-winning Belgian embassy in New Delhi despite not being a trained architect—if there was a theme that appeared many times over in his oeuvre, it was his anguish over Partition, a terrible lived reality of his own life. In this Untitled acrylic and encaustic work, a figure is discernible in an abstract plane, and is clearly in despair, its despondency accentuated by the sombre palette. The saffron streaks allude to the flames of anger that marked India’s Independence.