R B Bhaskaran

Modern Indian Art, Madras, Life cycle, canvas Painting, Abstract, Red, India

1996

Paintings by leading Indian artist R B Bhaskaran, often large-scale and vibrant, use a stripped-down imagery that celebrates form, color and ground. Only the best artists make a success from such simplicity. They capture our imagination and draw us into the work. These paintings allow us to explore intangible thoughts, feelings, and fleeting private moments. Bhaskaran’s paintings are great artworks, and great art teaches us something about ourselves.

Modern and contemporary art from India is now international in its collecting base. Leading artists such as R B Bhaskaran have always operated on a global platform. Born in 1942 in Madras, India, Bhaskaran made work that was an important part of the exciting explosion of modern art that began in India in the 1960s. He moved between India, the US and the UK, working and learning with some of the best.

Just like those of his contemporary, Howard Hodgkin, Bhaskaran’s paintings are distinctive. The brushstrokes and limited palette of strong colors point us straight to the artist and the spontaneity of his forms. While his images may appear to be simple in their choice of objects and shapes, they are anything but, which is why they hold our attention and draw us in. Each work, peppered with mark-making, lines, dots and color spots, creates paths that expands the narratives the paintings offer.

We see plants, trees and animals, pots and vases, people and cats. Lots and lots of images of a cat, which in Bhaskaran’s hands becomes a timeless form that mirrors and confronts us. Human-like, long-limbed, independent and commanding attention, it is primarily through the anthropomorphic image of the cat that Bhaskaran has chosen to explore his painting, his life as an artist and the world he inhabits.

Ultimately these are great paintings to live with. They have a weight to them, a quality that comes from a great painter who is an acknowledged master of his craft.

R B Bhaskaran trained at the Government College of Arts and Crafts, in what was then Madras, today Chennai. He obtained his masters in the UK and from 1970–80 expanded his practice at the Smithsonian in the United States. He has held prestigious positions within the art world in India including as chairman of the Lalit Kala Akademi in Delhi between 2002–07. His work is held in major public and private collections worldwide. Bhaskaran continues to live and work in Chennai, South India.

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