Untitled (Couple)

Abdulrahim Apabhai Almelkar was born in Ahmedabad in 1920 and began painting at the young age of seven. He suggested that his art education began while he was still in the womb, famously stating, “My mother was busy embroidering all through her pregnancy and I probably inherited art from her at that stage.”

In the mid-1940s, Almelkar moved to Mumbai to study at the Sir J.J. School of Art, where he won numerous awards at exhibitions organized by the Art Society of India and the Bombay Art Society before graduating in 1948. These accolades gained the artist recognition and helped to propel his career forward. By the end of his life, he had won nearly fifty medals for his work and held more than forty solo exhibitions of his work across Asia (‘Abdulrahim Appabhai Almelkar,’ National Gallery of Modern Art India website, accessed January 2013).

Almelkar began as a landscape painter, inspired by the works of artists like Walter Langhammer and N.S. Bendre. Following his graduation, in the late 1940s his work shifted to combine western techniques with indigenous traditions and subject matter, establishing his unique style. Drawing inspiration from Indian folk art, his work now centered on scenes from rural life in India, depicting villagers, fishermen, craftsmen and nayak nayika themes.

The paintings in lots 65, 87 and 88 illustrate Almelkar’s bold color schemes, precise linework, and affinity for local subject matter. With textural elements and impressionistic mark-making, the artist highlights the day-to-day lives of fishermen at work and locals selling their wares at market. He builds his figures with delicately outlined blocks of color, thinning out the pigment in areas of curvature and highlight. The four works in these lots, dating from 1955 to 1958, exemplify the unique artistic vision Almelkar developed, amalgamating indigenous subjects and a contemporary sensibility.