| Medium | : | Pastel |
|---|---|---|
| Height | : | 13.5 inch / 34.3 cm |
| Width | : | 15.5 inch / 39.4 cm |
| Dimension | : | W: 39.4 cm × H: 34.3 cm |
| Year | : | 1931 |
A serene pastel on paper depicting a reclining female figure within a sparse, dreamlike landscape. Soft earthy tones and delicate lines create an intimate, poetic composition filled with quiet emotion and contemplative charm.
Kartick Chandra Pyne | Untitled | Pastel on Paper | 15 x 22 inches
This evocative pastel on paper unfolds like a quiet dream suspended between reality and memory. A reclining female figure, rendered in soft, earthy reds and muted charcoal lines, rests in a sparse landscape marked by slender trees and delicate, wandering birds. The composition feels intimate and introspective—almost as though we are witnessing a fleeting thought rather than a physical scene.
The artist’s restrained palette and textured strokes lend the work a fragile, poetic quality. The body is not merely a form but a presence—sensuous yet distant, grounded yet dissolving into its surroundings. The subtle interplay between figure and landscape creates a sense of solitude, contemplation, and gentle mystery.
Executed in pastel on paper, the artwork carries a tactile softness that enhances its emotional depth. It invites the viewer to pause, reflect, and enter its silent narrative—where nature, memory, and the human form merge in quiet harmony. A timeless piece for collectors who appreciate nuance, atmosphere, and the poetry of understated expression.
Born into an aristocratic family of gold merchants, Kartick Chandra Pyne took an interest in art at an early age.
The older cousin of Ganesh Pyne, another remarkable Indian modernist,
K. C. Pyne graduated in fine arts from the Government College of Arts and Crafts, Calcutta, in 1955. Later, he taught at Calcutta’s Indian College of Arts and Draughtsmanship in the 1970s, and the Academy of Fine Arts in the ’80s.
One of India’s foremost surrealist painters who was influenced by artists such as Rabindranath Tagore, Marc Chagall, and Joan Miró, Pyne famously said, ‘I did not really know that I worked in the surrealist style till it was pointed out to me.’ His works, spontaneous and individualistic, had surreal imagery in bold colours. A four-time winner of the award of the Academy of Fine Arts, Calcutta, Pyne had represented India in the exhibition titled ‘100 Years of Modern Indian Art’ held at the Fukuoka Museum, Japan, in 1979.
An intensely private person, he preferred to pause, reflect and focus on painting while exploring a range of subjects — myth, fables, human stories, culture, memories, fantasy, erotica — in a vibrant palette. Art, for Pyne, was an intimate approach, thus requiring the artist to still the mind and experience the meditative aspect of creation.
Nothing stopped him, not even a paralytic stroke that affected the left side of his body in 1994. In fact, in the late ’90s, Pyne painted his acclaimed nude series. He was painting till a year before his death, for as long as he could hold a brush, at his home in Kolkata.
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