| Medium | : | Watercolour |
|---|---|---|
| Height | : | 18 inch / 45.7 cm |
| Width | : | 29 inch / 73.7 cm |
| Dimension | : | W: 73.7 cm × H: 45.7 cm |
| Year | : | 1931 |
A graceful watercolour on rice paper featuring a reclining female figure in luminous golden tones. Soft washes and textured surfaces create a serene, dreamlike composition filled with quiet elegance and emotional depth.
Kartick Chandra Pyne | Untitled | Watercolour on Rice Paper | 18 x 29 inches
This captivating watercolour on rice paper presents a reclining female figure suspended in a moment of quiet introspection. Bathed in warm golden tones, her form glows softly against a muted, atmospheric background of gentle blues and earthy neutrals. The fluidity of the medium allows her body to appear almost weightless—resting, yet subtly drifting within the surrounding space.
The artist’s delicate handling of watercolour creates a beautiful interplay between control and spontaneity. The textured rice paper enhances the organic quality of the work, allowing washes of colour to bloom and settle naturally. Her dark flowing hair frames a contemplative expression, while the softened contours of her body lend the composition an intimate, dreamlike quality.
There is a poetic stillness in this piece—an unspoken narrative that feels personal and reflective. The figure’s quiet presence invites the viewer to pause, to observe the harmony between strength and vulnerability, and to appreciate the subtle emotional depth carried within minimal gestures. A refined addition for collectors drawn to lyrical figurative works enriched with texture and mood.
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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