Christie's Highlights Modern and Contemporary Art from South Asia On March 20 in New York, Christie’s South Asian Modern + Contemporary Art sale will feature works from the leading 20th and 21st century artists from South Asia.
News-Antique.com - Feb 15,2008 - New York – On March 20 in New York, Christie’s South Asian Modern + Contemporary Art sale will
feature works from the leading 20th and 21st century artists from South Asia, including artists from
India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh. The sale will focus on prime examples of many different
movements and styles and highlights will include works from modern masters M.F. Husain, Francis
Newton Souza, Tyeb Mehta, Vasudeo S. Gaitonde, Syed Haider Raza and Ram Kumar as well as
works from leading contemporary artists Atul Dodiya, Bharti Kher, and Jitish Kallat among others.
The sale consists of over 125 lots and is expected to realize in excess of $9 million.
Among the various paintings in the sale from Maqbool Fida
Husain is a monumental work, one of the most significant to
appear at auction, The Battle of Ganga and Jamuna, painted in
1972 (estimate: $600,000-800,000). This large diptych was
made in the apex of Husain’s career and is a part of a series of
27 paintings he began for the 11th Sao Paolo Biennial. The
painting depicts a scene of the ancient Hindu epic, Mahabharata,
detailing the cosmic civil war between forces of right and wrong. Husain was specially invited to the
Biennale to exhibit alongside Pablo Picasso. Though Husain has since revisited the themes from
Mahabharata, the 1971 series was the first time he attempted the subject matter. Other works from
this series are currently housed in the collection of the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem,
Massachusetts.
An important untitled painting made in 1981 by Tyeb Mehta, the lauded master of Indian
Modernism is one of the sale highlights (estimate: $600,000-800,000). The painting depicts two
female figures intermingled, demonstrating Mehta’s formal and psychological considerations, and the
two forms suggest the tangled figures of his later Mahisasura series. Mehta’s Mahisasura realized
$1,584,000 in September 2005 at Christie’s, establish the world auction record for a Contemporary
Indian painting, and the first work in the category to break the million dollar mark
Another highlight in the sale is a rare figurative work by Ram Kumar,
Vagabond, made in 1956, which portrays three isolated and forlorn figures,
the mood emphasized by the dark and somber pallet (estimate: $400,000-
600,000). Kumar’s paintings of the 1950s are a direct reaction to the events
he witnessed around him upon his return to India from Paris. After studying
in Paris with Fernand Leger in 1950, his style as a figurative painter was
instilled with a melancholic realism. His figurative paintings from these years
capture the strong feelings of disillusionment and alienation harbored by
those around him.
From the founder of the Progressive Artists Group, Francis Newton Souza’s nude, Untitled, 1961, is
one of spectacular size and is a highlight among the dozen paintings by the artist offered in the sale
(estimate: $350,000-500,000). Made in the artistic peak of Souza’s career, this work demonstrates
why the artist is known as the “master of lines.” Souza’s paintings reflect his inventive interpretation
of the human form, and like Gauguin, possesses both
