Fazal Sheikh
Neela Dey (“Sapphire”), Vrindavan, India

Neela Dey (“Sapphire”), Vrindavan, India

© Fazal Sheikh

Neela Dey (“Sapphire”), Vrindavan, India
Neela Dey (“Sapphire”), Vrindavan, India
ArtistAmerican, born 1965
CultureAmerican
Titles
  • Neela Dey (“Sapphire”), Vrindavan, India
  • from the series Moksha
Date2005, printed 2016
Place depictedVrindāvan, India
MediumInkjet print
DimensionsImage: 22 3/8 × 18 1/8 in. (56.8 × 46 cm)
Sheet: 28 5/16 × 24 in. (71.9 × 61 cm)
Credit LineMuseum purchase funded by Jane P. Watkins
Object number2017.64
Not on view

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Department
Photography
Object Type
Description

“I was lucky in my marriage. My husband and his mother
always treated me with kindness. We raised two sons and saw both of them
married while we lived together contentedly for forty years. But after my
husband died, my elder son informed me that I could live anywhere I wanted—in
fact he was telling me to leave the house. His wife disliked me and wanted me
out of the way. I understood I had become a burden to my son and it was best to
go. I left at once, taking nothing with me, aware that I might never see any of
them again. I did go back, a few months later, but they asked me what I was
doing there and the message was clear: I should stay away.







“In Vrindavan we are so determined in our devotion that
everything else in the world is dead to us. We ourselves are dead and living
with Krishna. Sometimes Krishna comes to me while I am sleeping and takes my
sari and touches me or plays with me. I see him clearly and I want only to talk
to him, only to see him. I can go to the Yamuna as often as I please and bathe with
his spirit. I never dream about my family. I am seventy years old and all I
want now is moksha and freedom from this cycle of death and rebirth that has
caused me such pain.”



ProvenanceThe artist; [Pace/MacGill Gallery, New York]; purchased by MFAH, 2017.
Inscriptions, Signatures and Marks
Inscribed in pencil, verso, upper right corner: FZ.376.1
Signed in pencil, verso, bottom center: Neela Dey (‘Sapphire’), Vrindavan, India, 2005 ©Fazal Sheikh

Signed in pencil, verso, bottom center: Neela Dey (‘Sapphire’), Vrindavan, India, 2005 ©Fazal Sheikh

Cataloguing data may change with further research.

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Night along the Yamuna River, Vrindavan, India
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2017.67
Night along the Yamuna River, Vrindavan, India
Fazal Sheikh
2005, printed 2016
Inkjet print
2017.68