Acquired from an estate sale, Sussex, UK, 2021

As noted on the label on the reverse, this painting was gifted to George Butcher by the artist. George Butcher was a notable British art critic for The Guardian and a staunch supporter of the burgeoning Indian and South Asian modern art scene. He spent more than two years in India and befriended many artists, gallerists and art critics. It was there that he met Jagdish Swaminathan and the two forme🐭d a close friendship. An exhibition curated by Swaminathan’s son in 2012 even comprised a letter from Swaminathan to Butcher, asking him to bring him to England. Butcher’s support propelled Swaminathan’s career. By curating several shows featuring Swaminathan, Ram Kumar, Francis Newton Souza and Anwar Jalal Shemza, he was one of the first writers to assert the remarkable contribution of South Asian artists to a global form of modernism and he has left an indelible mark on the history and canon of modern Indian and South Asian art.

With elegant bird, solitary rock, and undulating mountain slopes, this vibrant and jewel-like painting is emblematic of the captivating compositions created by Jagdish Swaminathan. The canvas is framed into color fields, where perfec🐬t, featureless planes of brilliant pink, ochre and muted yellows are accompanied by mottled pink and blue mountains. The richly saturated palette and flat picture plane demonstrate the artist’s proclivity to the methods of Pahari and Basholi miniature painting. Here, however, these elements of the miniature tradition have been re-imagined through a distinctly modern and Surrealist lens.

With fantastic colouring and disproportionate, floating motifs, Swaminathan presents us with a decidedly conceptual landscape. The work can be interpreted as the artist's spiritu🌱al reading of nature as the guide to a deeply mystifying universe. Paintings such as the current lot appear to be pictorial maps designed to help the viewer see the world in new, revealing ways. Ultimately, this enchanting, resplendent landscape imparts aꦅ painterly expression of the sublime.