BIKASH BHATTACHARJEE (1940-2006)

Paintings from Bikash Bhattacharjee's 'Doll Series', one of which hangs in the collection of the National Gallery of Modern Art in New Delhi, have been lauded as the artist's most important works. Often juxtaposing dark scenes with the purity that children's toys represent, these works convey a sense of both the fragility of life and the loss of innocence. Bhattacharjee's style capitalizes on the idiosyncrasies of photography and cinema, incorporating dramatic cropping and collapsed depth of field. While many of the artist's compositional elements quote modern technological media, his meticulous handling of paint and color reference the work of painters like Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes, Edgar Degas, Salvador Dali and Andrew Wyeth.