An artist of great significance and impeccable integrity.

An artist of the 1950s Progressive movement, who veered away to find his own expression of abstraction. An artist so deeply distrustful of labels that he refused to title his artworks. An artist who said he thought of paintings in terms of music….”i hear colors.”

A son who snapped ties with his family and never looked back. Piecing together the life of India’s foremost abstract artist….and now the most expensive, after his jewel-like painting, an abstract landscape sold for Rs. 23.7 crore (USD 3.7 million) at Christie’s first auction in India last month. the highest price an Indian painting has fetched….brings one up against many walls of silences and accounts of connections lost. long before the art market began to realise his worth, Gaitonde had shut out the world, preferring the life of a recluse.

Much like his art, the life of Vasudeo Gaitonde, India’s foremost abstract artist, is an Enigma to those unable to see beyond the obvious.