He began working in the late 1950s in a non-representational mode—or as the
artist himself preferred to call it, a “non-objective” or non-figurative style. And
although short-lived, Gaitonde made foray into printmaking in 1957-58 alongside
his few peers and achieved his first financial break in 1957 when he won the
Fleischmann Prize at the First Young Asian Artists Exhibition in Tokyo
organized by the Japan Cultural Forum, which was affiliated with the Congress
for Cultural Freedom. A critical juncture occurred in Gaitonde’s career in 1959,
when he stopped working altogether with colored watercolors and pastels on
paper, as well as utilizing a brush alone for his canvases, and embarked on his
roller works on both canvas and paper. Then, the shift to a monochromatic palette
in 1961 — with ink or ink and wash on paper — accompanies Gaitonde’s interest in
Zen Buddhism and the principles of calligraphy, as manifest in a suite of works on
paper from 1962. Gaitonde’s artist questionnaire for MoMA’s collection files from
May 1963 conveys his interiorized world view and source of inspiration: “I work as
an individual. I do not have a scientific point of view; it is mostly my total
experience of life [and] nature that comes through me, that is manifested on
canvas. For me every painting I do is a miracle… So I cannot really form a
philosophy. It is my sincere belief in life, truth, God, whatever it is that prompts
me to paint.” Gaitonde made use of roller as a painting instrument as well as
palette knives through the 1960s and from this time on always worked on easels
during the painting process. Around 1968, one notices a shift from the horizontal
canvases to the dominating format of the verticals, which the artist continued to
utilize until his last works from 1997-98. In 1972, along with Kumar, Gaitonde
received the highly prestigious Padma Shri award from the government of India.
He moved to New Delhi permanently in 1972. At this time, he began utilizing a
“lift-off” process: tearing pieces from newspapers and magazines. The paintings
made with this process have a gravity-defying weightlessness and yet there is a real
sense of physicality and presence to them. Gaitonde fully believed in his vocation
of artist and in painting as such. He spent months cogitating over a new work but
allowed for accidents to ultimately inform the making of his art. Never prolific, he
is known to have made only a few paintings a year, given that the overall process of
conceptualizing a work was a lengthy one. This emphasis on the creative process,
the artist’s masterful handling of colour, structure, texture and light, and his
intuitive understanding of how these forces come together to alter one’s
perception are testament to his unwavering commitment to his craft. In
September 1984, Gaitonde suffered severe injuries in an auto accident in New
Delhi, which left him unable to cope with making large canvases.
Consequently, he turned to smaller format works on paper. His ink drawings rom
1985 - 87 from an important part of his overall oeuvre and consist of non-mimetic
calligraphic and hieroglyphic markings made with spontaneous gestures and
rhythmic movements. The draftsman of old returns in these works, and
encounters the artist who has complete control over cadence, tonality and scale.