Signed lower right “J Swaminathan”
Sizes:
Frame: 47.5 × 38.5 cm | 18.7 × 15.1 in
Artwork: 37.5 × 28.5 cm | 14.8 × 11.2 in
With Untitled (Three Forms), Jagdish Swaminathan distills gesture into archetype. Executed in black ink on paper, the composition features three biomorphic forms that hover between the symbolic and the subconscious. Radiating tendrils, concentric circles, and soft ink blooms emerge like ritual diagrams—evoking eyes, seeds, or primordial life. These are not depictions, but signs: elemental, spare, and deliberate.
Swaminathan’s minimalism is not silence, but focus. The eye is drawn into the precision of the black ink, the tension between control and spontaneity, between intention and accident. The work embodies a kind of visual incantation—inviting meditation rather than interpretation.
A founding figure of India’s Group 1890, Swaminathan rejected Western academicism and nationalist realism alike. He sought a visual language rooted in the intuitive and the indigenous—what he called “the mythic mind.” This work captures that ethos: a modern abstraction that resonates with tribal art, tantric symbolism, and sacred geometry. The forms speak not of personal emotion, but of universal presence.
In Untitled (Three Forms), the ink’s diffusion becomes a metaphor for transmission—of memory, of myth, of energy. Each mark is both deliberate and free, a product of discipline and surrender.
This rare, signed composition by Swaminathan is emblematic of his pioneering vision. More than a drawing, it is a visual relic—channeling the philosophy of an artist who fused the primitive and the avant-garde. With its purity of line and conceptual strength, it stands as both a historical document and a timeless aesthetic statement.
Whether viewed as calligraphic abstraction or spiritual cartography, this work exemplifies Swaminathan’s lasting legacy: art as invocation, form as meaning, silence as presence.
Good vintage condition with some signs of wear. Framed.
Private Collection, UK.
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Jagdish Swaminathan was a pivotal figure in modern Indian art, known for merging tribal iconography with contemporary abstraction. A founding member of Group 1890, he championed indigenous visual languages over Western academic norms. His work reflects a deep engagement with symbols, signs, and the subconscious—often rendered in ink, mineral pigment, or acrylic with striking restraint.
Swaminathan believed in the power of intuitive knowledge and the “mythic mind.” As an artist, writer, and curator, he played a vital role in elevating tribal and folk art to the level of high modernism. His legacy endures through his own work and through institutions like Bharat Bhavan, which he co-founded to support non-mainstream art practices across India.
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