N° d'objet
M.2009.27
Titre
The Indian Triptych
Date
2008 - 2008
Créateur
Raison de la création
Commissioned to honour the 75th anniversary of the first All India Test tour to England in 1932,
Matériel
Etendue
Description
Three portraits of Indian cricketers, one on each canvas. Two are wearing India cricket team sweaters. One is tossing a ball in his right hand, the other is leaning on a bat and wearing leg pads. The third man is wearing a sweater with red and yellow trim and a light blue dastar (turban).
Commissioned to honour the 75th anniversary of the first All India Test tour to England in 1932, MCC sent artist Stuart Pearson Wright to Mumbai to create portraits of three of India’s most prolific players during the twentieth century: Kapil Dev, Bishan Bedi and Dilip Vengsarkar.
Working from life and from photographs the artist plays with a mix of the real and the surreal. Painted under heavy studio stoplights these figures seem disconnected from the backdrop constructed back in London primarily from a nylon-based material known as flock. Flock has a grass-like texture and was used by the artist to emphasize the idea that “cricket pitches are so manicured that they sometimes look fake”. Obsessed with the idea that paintings are fictions, Wright offers the viewer a glimpse of the reality behind the set-up by recording the fact that Vengsarkar and Kapil Dev came to their sittings wearing casual shoes instead of trainers.
Intrigued by the historical process that takes place in order for a picture to be created the artist believes that “their shoes can say more about who they are as people than the face”.
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