Lot 69: April '73

Biren De (B. 1926)
April '73
signed and dated 'Biren De '73' (lower left); inscribed 'April 73 (c) Biren De' (on the reverse); signed and dated again 'Biren De '73' (on the reverse)
oil on canvas
52½ x 40 1/8in. (133.4 x 101.9cm.)
Painted in 1973

New Jersey, Jane Voorhees Zimmerli Art Museum, Rutgers University, 2002.

Chester and Davida Herwitz collection.
Sotheby's New York, 12 June 1995, lot 36.

PROPERTY FROM A PRIVATE NORTHEASTERN COLLECTION, USA


Biren De began his career as a portrait painter before moving on to figurative works. This phase lasted until the late 1950s when figures began to be substituted for freely floating shapes. Lot 69 was executed in 1973 when he was fully absorbed in Neo-Tantric ideologies. The scholars of Tantric art were of the opinion that art is sadhana meaning that the act of creation is in fact spiritual practice. Biren De used geometric forms and the juxtapositions of color and light to embody notions of shakti , or the pure energies of a universal life force. His technique of applying color to canvas brings the canvas alive with its translucency and near transparency, providing the viewer with a sense of immense tranquility and a mood of meditation. The presence of a 'U' shape and another upright shape, symbolizing the male and the female, the ying and the yang, opposites and balance. Both lots 69 and 71 have the occurrence of the dynamic spherical form signifying the seed that is at the core of the universe.