Man

Dhanraj Bhagat, who migrated to New Delhi from Lahore just a few years before Partition, is an important modernist who was one of the earliest to make artistic departures from the prevalent practises of the time. From the 1950s, he started making large and powerful sculptures in a variety of materials such as wood, cement, and plaster of paris. This helped him achieve texturality, so essential to accentuate the character of the work, as is the case with Man. The brown patches lend it character, heightened by multiple geometric forms stacked over each other. The totality of the sculptural presence is daunting, its vertical nature suggesting vitality.