{"meta":{"version":"2.1","_links":{"self":{"href":"https://api.vam.ac.uk/v2/object/O71784"},"collection_page":{"href":"https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O71784/"}},"images":{"_primary_thumbnail":"https://framemark.vam.ac.uk/collections/2006BA0760/full/!100,100/0/default.jpg","_iiif_image":"https://framemark.vam.ac.uk/collections/2006BA0760/","_alt_iiif_image":[],"imageResolution":"low","_images_meta":[{"assetRef":"2006BA0760","copyright":"©Victoria and Albert Museum, London/Gulam Mohammed Sheikh","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2006AP6626","copyright":"©Victoria and Albert Museum, London/Gulam Mohammed Sheikh","sensitiveImage":false}]},"see_also":null},"record":{"systemNumber":"O71784","accessionNumber":"IS.15-1986","objectType":"Painting","titles":[{"title":"City for Sale","type":"assigned by artist"}],"summaryDescription":"The painting depicts the city of Baroda, Gujarat, and the events that took place during the early 1980s. 'City for Sale' represents one of the artist's most ambitious paintings of the eighties, where an epic scene is stirred up with the subject of Baroda's communal riots. In the centre is a cinema which is showing the film 'Silsila'. A hoarding painter is shown depicting the eye of a cinematic heroine on a billboard. This scene, as pointed out by the artist, alludes to 'Chakshudana pata', a folk tradition in eastern India, in which a painter fills in the portrait of a person recently deceased, with an eyeball, in an attempt to give vision to the sighteless spirit of the dead. Surrounding the cinema are street scenes of Baroda life. At the top of the picture is a riot scene with figures spilling out over buildings. At the bottom left, vegetables spill from a vendor's cart and tiny figures appear trapped into the veil of the vegetable vendor. In the bottom left hand corner are landmarks of Baroda. ","physicalDescription":"The painting, in oil on canvas, depicts the city of Baroda, Gujarat, and the events that took place during the early 1980s. In the centre is a cinema which is showing the film 'Silsila'. A hoarding painter is shown depicting the eye of a cinematic heroine on a billboard. This scene, as pointed out by the artist, alludes to 'Chakshudana pata', a folk tradition in eastern India, in which a painter fills in the portrait of a person recently deceased, with an eyeball, in an attempt to give vision to the sighteless spirit of the dead. Surrounding the cinema are street scenes of Baroda life. At the top of the picture is a riot scene with figures spilling out over buildings. At the bottom left, vegetables spill from a vendor's cart and tiny figures appear trapped into the veil of the vegetable vendor. In the bottom left hand corner are landmarks of Baroda. \r\n\r\n","artistMakerPerson":[{"name":{"text":"Sheikh, Gulammohammed","id":"A6874"},"association":{"text":"artist","id":"AAT25103"},"note":""}],"artistMakerOrganisations":[],"artistMakerPeople":[],"materials":[{"text":"oil colour","id":"AAT15050"},{"text":"canvas","id":"AAT14078"}],"techniques":[{"text":"painted","id":"AAT54216"}],"materialsAndTechniques":"Painted in oil on canvas","categories":[{"text":"Paintings","id":"THES48917"},{"text":"Bonita Trust Indian Paintings Cataloguing Project","id":"THES263148"}],"styles":[],"collectionCode":{"text":"SSEA","id":"THES48598"},"images":["2006BA0760","2006AP6626"],"imageResolution":"low","galleryLocations":[{"current":{"text":"WS","id":"THES408426"},"free":"","case":"","shelf":"","box":""}],"partTypes":[[{"text":"oil paintings","id":"AAT33799"}]],"contentWarnings":[{"apprise":"","note":""}],"placesOfOrigin":[{"place":{"text":"Baroda","id":"x30823"},"association":{"text":"made","id":"x28654"},"note":""}],"productionDates":[{"date":{"text":"1981-1984","earliest":"1981-01-01","latest":"1984-12-31"},"association":{"text":"made","id":"x28654"},"note":""}],"associatedObjects":[],"creditLine":"Copyright Gulammohammed Sheikh","dimensions":[{"dimension":"Height","value":"204.5","unit":"cm","qualifier":"","date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"part":"","note":""},{"dimension":"Width","value":"306","unit":"cm","qualifier":"","date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"part":"","note":""}],"dimensionsNote":"Weighs 78 kg","marksAndInscriptions":[{"content":"Signature and date are on the right hand edge of the painting midway on the canvas. Both the title of the work and signature are written in Gujarati.","inscriber":{"name":{"text":"","id":""},"association":{"text":"","id":""}},"date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"description":"","interpretation":"","language":"","medium":"","method":"","position":"","script":"","translation":"","transliteration":"","type":"","note":""}],"objectHistory":"Purchased from the artist. Registered file: 1985/74\n\nHistorical significance: Of the subject the artist has said: 'Our rich and valuable experience of diversity of faiths, ideologies, attitudes, has been brutalized by successive bands of mafiosi, who have subverted the process of continuous and positive transformation that this wonderful mix should normally lead to. My painting is about the irony and absurdity of this brutalization. The city of Baroda where I live, like other Indian cities, has been brutalized in this way and my painting is about Baroda.'\r\nGieve Patel has observed that the painting resembles a 'vortex or a volcanic eruption' in which things clash and pour into eachother.","historicalContext":"","briefDescription":"Painting, City for Sale, by Gulam Mohammed Sheikh, painting, oil on canvas, India, 1981-1984","bibliographicReferences":[{"reference":{"text":"","id":""},"details":"","free":"Rachel Dwyer & Divia Patel, Cinema India: the Visual Culture of the Hindi Film, Reaktion Press, 2002."},{"reference":{"text":"","id":""},"details":"","free":"Contemporary Art in Baroda, ed. by Gulammohammed Sheikh, published by Tulika, 1997, New Delhi"},{"reference":{"text":"","id":""},"details":"","free":"Patel, Divia: Arts of Asia, vol. 45, no. 5, September - October 2015, p.82, no. 12."}],"production":"","productionType":{"text":"","id":""},"contentDescription":"","contentPlaces":[{"text":"Baroda","id":"x30823"}],"associatedPlaces":[{"text":"Baroda","id":"x30823"}],"contentPerson":[],"associatedPerson":[],"contentOrganisations":[],"associatedOrganisations":[],"contentPeople":[],"associatedPeople":[],"contentEvents":[],"associatedEvents":[],"contentOthers":[{"text":"Cinema","id":"AAT7135"},{"text":"city","id":"AAT8389"},{"text":"Houses","id":"AAT5433"}],"contentConcepts":[],"contentLiteraryRefs":[],"galleryLabels":[{"text":"This painting is a response to the film Silsila and the communal riots that broke out in Baroda at the same time. Silsila was a story about a love triangle. The newspapers and were filled with gossip about the alleged adulterous affair between the two leading stars. Critical of the way cinema had become central to life and culture, Sheikh contrasts this superficial world with images of the realities of urban life and the city riots. The painting focuses on a cinema screen which depicts the climactic scene from the film where the wife comes face to face with her husband and his mistress.","date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null}}],"partNumbers":["IS.15-1986"],"accessionNumberNum":"15","accessionNumberPrefix":"IS","accessionYear":1986,"otherNumbers":[],"copyNumber":"","aspects":["WHOLE"],"assets":[],"recordModificationDate":"2026-03-13","recordCreationDate":"2002-12-10","availableToBook":false}}