Anjolie Ela Menon (b. 1940 in Bengal) is one of India’s best known artists. She had her first solo exhibition in 1958 in Delhi and at the time, renowned critic, Richard Bartholmew (a former Secretary of the Lalit Kala Akademi) while reviewing this debut predicted: "I have no doubt that before long this gifted young woman will be joining the ranks of our very best painters." These words have been truly prophetic and Menon’s trajectory over the last five decades is testimony to the evolution of an artist who has defied easy classification and who has broken fresh ground with confident panache. Comparisons have been made on occasion to Amrita Shergil and while the latter tragically died at a relatively young age, there are many similarities in their palette and visual metaphor that merit scrutiny. From their early training at the Ecole des Beaux Arts, Paris, they both evolved as pioneers of rare virtuosity and strong individual conviction in the evolution of contemporary Indian art. The current portfolio provides an overview of Menon’s considerable body of work that spans half a century. A figurative painter in the main who has dwelt on the human protagonist, she once remarked wryly: "In India can one be otherwise?" Menon stubbornly remained a figurative painter through the years when abstraction was in vogue. Even in her landscapes, cityscapes and interiors – traces of the missing protagonist are evident by their very absence. For Example, the chair set in the bleak landscape with net curtains suggesting a prim interior bears the imprint of the person who has just vacated it – eaving the crows to examine the detritus.
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