PARIAH

PARIAH 1935
Sanguine on paper, 44 x 33 cm
Artist’s signature (bottom right): Boris Georgiev Simla.
Inv. N 822
In his notes about India, Boris Georgiev wrote: During my frequent visits to Gandhi in his
habitat Ashram in Wardha, every evening thousands of those martyrs would come round
to find a little solace in their tragic lives with the Apostle of Good who had been fighting for
their freedom and that was why he was killed by the Brahmins. The study depicts the face
of an old Pariah who I saw one evening. He was seated next to Gandhi with a touching expression of goodness on his face and a glance turned upwards towards God to find soothing for his suffering.
The image of that old poverty stricken man whose life rested only on the spirit, later became
part of the monumental composition of Boris Georgiev’s well-known painting, Meeting the
Pariahs or Daridra Naraama. What the artist saw in his tragic face embodied the social inequality and suffering which for ages on end divided the people in Indian society. The portrait painted in sanguine has a great emotional impact.