ACHARYA VYAKUL (1930 - 2000)

"Untitled", 1991

Gouache on paper

5 1/16 x 10 ⅞ inches (13 x 27.5 cm)

Courtesy of Joost van den Bergh, London

Selected by Alexander Gorlizki 

Painter, philosopher and art collector Acharya Vyakul was born in Rajasthan, India in 1930. A member of the Brahman caste in India, his family moved to Jaipur in 1959 where he lived until his death in 2000. Vyakul (meaning ‘the excited one’ in sanskrit) was a guru to many and an ardent collector from a very young age of magical and religious items, establishing his own private museum in Jaipur with a collection of folk and Tantra art. He starts painting from a very young age, initially as a hidden passion, mostly enticed by colour. His first works in the ‘tantra-folk’ style and then, in the early sixties, he finds his own way. His drawings are rooted in the meditative experience of the unity between man and cosmic forces. They are anchored in Indian culture and in the tradition of tantric philosophy and imagery, the deeper layers of which are difficult for us to understand. However, Vyakul’s drawings can also be read as purely existential expressions. They speak a language that can be intuitively grasped, even without a background in another cultural sphere, and that functions independently of rational insights. Vyakul considered himself a modern painter working in the abstract tradition. He referred to himself as a ‘Modern artist with roots’. Unusually for painters of tantra, Vyakul signed his name. Vyakul first came to the West’s attention in 1989 in the seminal exhibition Magiciens de la Terre at the Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris. Joost van den Bergh is currently preparing a new catalogue with a selection of Vyakuls work on paper. The catalogue will have an introduction written by Lawrence Rinder.