Painted in 2006, Death of Dandahah belongs to the pivotal body of work that established
Anj Smith as one of the most singular painters of her generation. The title draws from the
Panchatantra, the ancient Sanskrit fables, and the painting distills Smith’s characteristic
method: a ledge-like ground of thickly worked impasto gives way to a luminous, almost
airless upper field, from which hummingbirds caught in wire armatures describe a kind of
arrested flight; fragile, precise, and deeply unsettling. Producing fewer than ten works a year,
Smith’s output is deliberately restricted, each canvas the result of an extended, obsessive
process. This work entered the market directly from the artist’s studio and was exhibited the
same year at IBID Projects, London, the gallery that first brought her critical attention. Her
subsequent representation by Hauser & Wirth, which opened its New York space with her
work in 2009, confirmed a stature that this painting helped build.