Admirer of Paul Raj Paintings

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Paul was born in Kodaikanal on 22 September 1914 and died on 2 October 1979. G D Arulraj was born in 1925 and died in June 1972 while visiting India. Arul worked at Laguna Beach in the 60's and 1970's. G D Thyagaraj might have been born in 1922 and I am told that he probably died sometime before 1981. He moved to northern India as a young man. I lived in India as a child and spent a lot of time in Calcutta. My mother purchased several paintings directly from Paul Raj while living in Madras and this got me interested in his works. I then discovered he had two brothers Arul Raj and Thyaga Raj who were both fantastic artists. I could not find much information on the internet so decided to set up my own blog. Subsequently a Facebook tribute site has also been created to the memory of the three brothers. Contact me at: rajbrothers@hotmail.co.uk

Saturday 19 March 2011

G D Paulraj - Notebook 1 - August 1960 Bombay

Today I am adding a couple of pages from Paul Raj's notebook in which he kept records of his paintings that he sent to customers on approval.  These two pages refer to a customer in Bombay in August 1960.  It seems he sold 6 out of the 12 paintings.
The prices can help us date his paintings as I have seen information on the back of paintings I own, the name of the painting and its price, but until now I did not know a year.  The second page follows below.
Paul must have been aged 46 years at the time he painted these paintings.  They give an amazing insight into how he can create tiny sketches of his painting with a minimal number of lines.  I think they are an amazing record.

2 comments:

  1. I have a large (28"x36") oil on linen that looks much like "Market in Delhi", sketch #10, in the notebook pages dated August 1960 and posted March 19,2011. GD seems to have valued it at 150 the same as many of the others. My guess is that he likely did a watercolour for that price as I rarely see any oils. Mine is much larger than most so I expect he charged more. Mine turned up at an auction here in Canada in the late 90's in a dead boring frame. I reframed it. Now everyone in the family wants me to leave it to them. Very much an impressionist piece

    I have a second painting - a very small watercolour measuring 3 1/2" x 4 1/2". That was an ebay find described as being the work of a Canadian artist (what?). I guess all it took was mountains and water to make the seller think that.

    trehane

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    1. Hello Trehane. Thank you for your comment, I am glad you have been able to find a similar painting in the notebook. As you say Paul's oil paintings are much less common. It would be great if you would send me a photo of your painting to the email address at the top of the blog page so I can add it to the blog?
      Thanks
      Gold Finch

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