V. S. Gaitonde: Painting as Process, Painting as Life

Comprising over 40 paintings and works on paper drawn from over 30 leading public institutions and private collections across Asia, Europe, and the United States, this is the first retrospective exhibition dedicated to the work of the Indian painter Vasudeo Santu Gaitonde (1924–2001). With an unparalleled career in the history of South Asian modern art, Gaitonde was an influential colorist, known to fellow artists and intellectuals, as well as to later generations of students and admirers, as a man of uncompromising artistic integrity of spirit and purpose. The exhibition, firstly presented at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York, and now at the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice, introduces the public to this solitary genius who developed his own nonobjective style, employing palette knives, paint rollers and a “lift-off” technique. The exhibition reveals Gaitonde’s extraordinary use of color, form and texture in creating works that glow with an inner light. For Gaitonde, painting, life and the creative process were all one and the same.