Mohan Samant drew on primitive art, which was accentuated by the artist’s unconventional mix of colours, crisp lines, sporadic textures and figural stylisations. The relief-like quality recalls the folk and mural art traditions that hark far back in time. Samant’s work is layered. It is a fusion of the abstract, the primitive and his own painterly expression. Fascinated with the cultures of Greece and Rome, and Hinduism and Buddhism, Samant studied and absorbed their non-realistic and mythological forms and they appeared variously in his work, as here.
published references
Singh, Kishore, Memory & Identity: Indian Artists Abroad (New Delhi: DAG, 2016), p. 275 Tillotson, Giles, Primitivism and Modern Indian Art (New Delhi: DAG, 2019), p. 288-89
Mohan Samant
Untitled
c. 1952
Acrylic, gouache and marker on cardboard
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Mohan Samant
Untitled
c. 1952
Acrylic, gouache and marker on cardboard
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