397 - Sadanand Bakre (Indian, 1920-2007) Untitled (Dandelions) signed l.r. and numbered '35' u.l., coloured pencil and pastel on paper (visible 17.5 x 24cm; framed and glazed) Provenance: A private collection, Surrey. Footnote: Sadanand K Bakre was a leading figure of Indian Modernism and a founding member of the Progressive Artists' Group. Born in Baroda, he moved with his family to Mumbai, where he attended the Gokhale Education Society School. Encouraged by his drawing teacher, he began pursuing painting seriously and, at sixteen, held his first solo exhibition at the school, showing drawings, pastels, still lifes, watercolours and clay models of drapery. In 1939, Bakre joined the Sculpture Department of the Sir J J School of Art, Mumbai, where he received a rigorous training in academic realism, learning to model in clay and to make plaster and bronze casts. His talent earned him a series of prizes and scholarships, including a Diploma in Sculpture and the Lord Harding Scholarship in 1944. Bakre was encouraged by the influential art critic Rudi von Leyden (1908-1983), a leading voice of the Indian art scene in the mid-20th century, who introduced Bakre to the modernist movements of the US and Europe, and helped mentor his ideology. He became one of the Progressive Artists’ Group in 1947, alongside Francis Newton Souza, Maqbool Fida Husain, K H Ara, H A Gade and S H Raza. In 1950-51, Bakre moved to London, where he continued to paint and sculpt, while his exposure to British avant-garde movements, particularly Vorticism, contributed to the development of his increasingly angular and geometric vocabulary. The present work reflects Bakre's engagement with abstraction on paper. Executed in a compact horizontal format, the composition demonstrates his interest in the relationship between line, shape and surface. The 1960s represented a significant period in Bakre’s artistic development, with his paintings and sculptures characterised by bold geometric lines, angular forms and an increasing engagement with structure. By the late 1960s, his earlier 'spiky' forms had developed into more simplified compositions, while the relationship between his painting and sculpture grew closer. His work was exhibited widely in Britain, Europe and India, including at Gallery One, London, the Commonwealth Institute and the Nicholas Treadwell Gallery. Bakre returned permanently to India in 1988 and settled at Murud-Harnai on the Konkan coast of Maharashtra, where he continued to paint and sculpt until his death in 2007.