'Portrait features a folded, cut-out paper figure seated before a grey column. The work is small and the images are clearly defined. Echoes of Picasso define the portrait, which contrasts with the grey s⛎olemnity of what appears to be an antique structure. The figural frieze above the head, recalling Roman battle scenes on triumphal arches, evokes a different time period than that suggested by the almost-correct linear perspওective of the chair. The impact of his many visits to the Metropolitan Museum of Art is evident.'

(M. Sirhandi, 'Mohan Samant (1924-2004), R. Hoskote, M. Sirhandi, and J. Wechsler, eds., Mohan Samant: Paintings, Mapin Publis🍌hing Pvt. Ltd., Ahmedabad,🔯 2013, pp. 227-8)

Born and raised in Bombay, Mohan Samant joined the Progressive Artists' Group in 1952, upon his graduation from the Sir J.J. School of Art. In these early years, he exhibited his work alongside India's leading modernists in seminal sh💫ows such as ‘Progressive Artists' Group: Gaitonde, Raiba, Ara, Hazarnis, Khanna, Husain, Samant, Gade’ (1953) at Jehangir Art Gallery, Bombay and ‘Eight Painters: Bendre, Gaitonde, Gujral, Husain, Khanna, Kulkarni, Kumar, Samant’ (1956), curated by Thomas Keehn in New Delhi. 

Despite his early assꦫociation with the Bombay Progressives, Samant soon struck his own artistic course. In 1958, Samant moved to New York on a Rockefeller scholarship, and throughout the 1960s, his work examined the properties of oil, abstract forms and texture. Using paint, mixed media, sand and glue, Samant explored non-figuration, guided by the freedom and spirit of the city and his personal music practice. 

Permanently relocating to New York in the late 60s, his work in the following decade was defined by elements of figurative play, especially through the use of bright colours anܫd mixed media. It was during this time that Samant began to experiment with paper cutouts, a medium that afforded the artist even greater opportunities to explore the textural, three-▨dimensional possibilities of his craft. 

Samant adhered these cut-outs to his canvas, creating crowded and fantastical scenes of mythical characters, rendered in pop colours. A renowned example is a largescale work titled Midnight Fishing Party from 1978, acquired by the Tate Collection in 2020. By contrast to these populated compositions, in the present work from 1980, a single portrait fills the frame. The figure is crafted from paper cutouts atop a ground of silver, a backdrop that recalls that of Silver Painting, executed in the same year. In the cღurrent lot, Samant utilizes the compositional conventions of classic portraiture, with his figure's sideways gaze and set posture. However, in all other aspects, the work is a unique and contemporary take on the traditionalꦡ understanding of a portrait. The figure's exaggerated features, complex three-dimensionality and blocks of disjointed colour powerfully exhibit the visionary freedom with which Samant approached his work. 

'I have long suspected that Mohan Samant was the missing link in the evolutionary nature of contemporary art in India… a dislocated, but never disoriented, pioneer.' (R. Hoskote, Mohan Samant Paintings, Mapin P🍌ublishing Pvt. Ltd., ♎Ahmedabad, 2013, p. 15)