Lot 67: Anjolie Ela Menon (b. 1940) , Goat People Oil on canvas

Signed and dated 'Anjolie Ela Menon 2002' upper left and signed dated and inscribed ' 'goat people'/ London August/ 2002/ Anjolie Ela Menon' on reverse Oil on canvas

57 by 36 in. (144.8 by 91.4 cm.)

PROPERTY OF A PRIVATE PENNSYLVANIA COLLECTOR
Anjolie Ela Menon began her career as an artist in the mid 1950s but it was not until she studied in Paris in the 60s that she was introduced to the technique of layering paint to create texture. This method of application was widely used in Early European Christian art and her early canvases are clearly inspired by this imagery. The current work although painted much later retains many of the features of her earlier works; the haunting elongated figures, the goats and crow and imagery immediately reminiscent of medieval icons. However there is a joyous use of bold colors that is almost entirely absent from her earlier works. 'I always had a theory that colors are born from the bleak wastes of the desert. I think of Rajasthan or of Ladakh...this is also true of my work when I look back on it. It was in my moments of greatest despair that the hooded eyes of my subjects opened to let in the light, and vivid colors invaded my canvases....I hardly draw. I think in color and paint lines in reverse. Color is everything. Its depth or density, translucence or opacity form the nuances of one's creative output. It is with color that one sings, with color that one plummets to the depths of sorrow and pain.' (Anjolie Ela Menon in an interview with Indira Dayal, published in Anjolie Ela Menon: Paintings in Private Collections, New Delhi, 1995). Although Menon is reluctant to ascribe symbolic value to many of the motifs that re-appear in her canvases the crow holds a special relevance to her. 'My sole companion during the long days of painting in my flat was a crow. He was my regular, he grew friendlier each day until he stepped into the picture, insinuating himself into nearly every frame...Ultimately the crow who is one of the most human creatures, became a sort of alter-ego, an observer demanding to be let in and he has been there ever since.' (Isana Murthi, Anjolie Ela Menon: Paintings in Private Collections, New Delhi, 1995). The current painting thus appears to blend European religious imagery with the idyllic imagery of rural India previously used by artists like Bendre, Hebbar and Chavda; but for Menon the imagery is adapted to participate in a more personal message which remains partially hidden.