SANKHO CHAUDHAURI 

Exhibition of paintings & sculptures, 18-29 January 2005, Sarjan Art Gallery 

Introductory Note by K. G. Subramanayan 

This is probably the first large exhibition of Professor Sankho Chaudhuri's work in Baroda, Though, strangely enough, he spent here some of his most productive years, was one of the main architects of the original academic programme of the city's well-known Faculty of Fine Arts, and had through his enormous talent, energy and dynamism given a new visage to its department of sculpture and contributed in various ways to the creative atmosphere of the institution. 

But sculptor Sankho Chaudhuri has been an important figure in the art scene of India for over fifty years, during which time there has been a new efflorescence in modern Indian sculpture. And Sankho was, without doubt, one of the formative influences within it, on the strength of his contribution as a sculptor and teacher and his relentless advocacy for the promotion of sculpture in both the public and private spheres 

Like his teacher Ramkinker Baij, Sankho is a highly resourceful and accomplished creative sculptor and portraitist. After Ramkinker he is one of our most original portraitists; he brings into his portraits a sort of mannered romanticism that takes them beyond being physiognomic documents, in a subtle way depersonalizing them and reimaging them as cult figures of sorts. This transformation naturally invests them with an artistic quality that outlasts their original contexts. 

The pervading traits of Sankho's creative sculpture are quite individual and on antithesis to Ramkinker's expressionist ebullience. Caught between his two prominent personality traits of romantic enthusiasm and urban restraint his work steers clear of being aggressively analytical or soddenly sentimental. It does not become noticeably melodramatic; nor does it remain quiescent. Instead, it ploughs a non-committed furrow between these and at its best combines the qualities of movement and stasis in a kind of congealed elegance. Although Sankho's early work takes off from a kind of cubist aesthetic (vide Archipenko) its decided formative influence come perhaps from the work of the mathematical lyricist Beothy, whom be came to know and admire in Paris. Like him Sankho chose to walk the tight rope between measure and mutation, between the material and the organic, in a highly personal intuitive way. For this sake he kept himself to a restricted thematic spectrum the elusive elegance of the female figure or flower or bird or seashell. But, with the passage of time his work has been growing purer and more refined, shedding slowly its descriptiveness and rococo fragility, becoming simpler in contour but more engagingly subtle. In his best pieces Sankho keeps alive a delicate linear pulsation within an object of austere simplicity. They are easy to live with but, in a secret way, they refurbish your sensibilities. 

As a sculptor Sankha has handled all the basic media wood, stone, bronze, welded metal, plaster, terracotta, stucco. He has worked on large-scale projects in relief and the round; he has even tried a hand at motorized mobiles; he has always been on experimentalist. He has been able to inspire a large number of his students with the same spirt of enquiry and innovation and some of them are amongst the most inventive artists of our time. 

Besides being on admirable sculptor Sankho is also a sensitive draughtsman. Many of his drawings, often dane with great élan and flourish, attempt to catch the spirit of a landscape or figure; others fore vision ideas for a projected sculpture. They too have, at the same time, the contained dynamism that is the hallmark of his sculpture 

This show of Sankho's sculptures and drawings organized at the Sarjan Art Gallery, should bring back to the minds of the art loving public of Baroda his many-sided and mercurial personality that worked hard, at one time, to widen their horizons. 

K. G. Subramanyan 

10th January 2005