“Though [Nasreen Mohamedi’s] works from the 1960s seem to be within the lineage of lyrical abstraction, they are the most agitated works in her entire oeuvre. A certain messiness comes through, of nature withered, abandoned, bearing only traces of the ‘beatings’ of life. Fatal signs of decay are accentuated: dry leaves with empty veins and spines, an isolated branch of a swayed palm left to perish. Ink wash and dry brush are adequate to create the rising agitating ripples in another drawing, the tip of the brush trembling as it leaves a mark to bleed on the moist paper. Colors begin to fade and disappear, and a monochromatic intensity takes over. One of the most telling works of this period captures frenzy in the quivering lines that rise up as tentacles, suggesting perhaps a maya jaal (worldly trap), an entanglement difficult to escape.” (R. Karode, Nasreen Mohamedi: Waiting Is a Part of Intense Living, New York, 2016, p. 27)

Lots 18 and 19 were executed in the 1960s and gifted by Mohamedi to her artist friend, Iffet Karanis. They first met in London when they studied at Saint Martin's School of Art between 1953-1957. Both young women were far from their homes, Mohamedi coming from India and Karanis from Turkey where she was born and returned after her studies, and the two friends remained close. The present works were exchanged when Mohamedi visited Karanis in Turkey in 1969 and offer a rare testimony of the artist’s life and relations, and also of a pivotal period in Narseen’s oeuvre.

Mohamedi grew up spending considerable time by the sea in Kihim, a small village near Mumbai. It became her family’s preferred holiday destination, and the close proximity to nature and the minimal living it offered would have a lasting impact on Nasreen’s oeuvre and way of life. The present works carry a strong influence of seascapes in their compositions, with a texture that seems to have been washed by the sea, cleansed of all excess, with forms reminiscent of objects and shapes the waves leave on the shore. Mohamedi poetically described the experience of sitting by the seashore, writing in one of her diaries, “Lines, circles, dots, traces of texture, beatings on the beach, slow changes in rocks, weaving and polishing of pebbles, each wave a destiny which ends in one breath, a swaying of the palms in one sway - all, everything.” (Artist statement, Nasreen in Retrospect, Bombay, 1995, p. 87)

The artist’s collages from this period highlight her aversion to intricate aesthetics, making a subtle transition from her watercolors based on nature to the abstracted forms of a non-referential world. The illusion of depth is created by intricately layering cutouts and torn bits of paper, and the subdued play between transparency and opacity, surface and structure creates a space animated by a subtle rhythm. Fragile forms shimmer on the surface while areas of light seem to seep out from the background, illuminating the works with a sense of hope.