Mahinder & Sharad Tak's Indian art collection under the hammer at Christie's

The sale will coincide with the highly anticipated annual event, the Asian Art Week in New York, when top auction houses, museums and galleries put their best of Asian Art on display and sale. This year, the Asian Art Week will be held from 15-30 March

While the catalogues are being finalized for the end-of-March sales, Christie's has already announced the most important highlight of its South Asian Modern + Contemporary Art auction to be held on 23 March in New York. The live auction will feature works from the Mahinder and Sharad Tak collection, one of the most important collections of Indian art in the US by the husband-wife duo, long-time patrons of Indian art and dedicated philanthropists

In India, with the winter almost gone and spring flowers sprouting all around, the season has made its first big turn for the year 2022. In the western hemisphere as well, spring will be knocking on the doors in a few weeks. In tandem, the world of art has begun preparing for the first big auction season of the year, the Spring Sales of New York, that are held annually in March.

While the catalogues are being finalized for the end-of-March sales, Christie's has already announced the most important highlight of its South Asian Modern + Contemporary Art auction to be held on 23 March in New York. The live auction will feature works from the Mahinder and Sharad Tak collection, one of the most important collections of Indian art in the US by the husband-wife duo, long-time patrons of Indian art and dedicated philanthropists. The sale will coincide with the highly anticipated annual event, the Asian Art Week in New York, when top auction houses, museums and galleries put their best of Asian Art on display and sale. This year, the Asian Art Week will be held from 15-30 March.

The Mahinder and Sharad Tak Collection

Part I of the Christie's sale of South Asian Art is titled The Visionary Collection of Mahinder and Sharad Tak. Though the total number of works on offer in the sale has not been disclosed yet, the preview of the auction has already begun. A selection of works was shown in London earlier this month, while private viewings are being held in Mumbai currently through 25 February. Final preview of the select works will be held just days before the sale, in New York from 18 March to 22 March.

The collection has been put together by the couple over the past half century and has become one of the most important Indian art collections in North America. Nishad Avari, head of sale, South Asian Modern + Contemporary Art at Christie's, said, "We are honoured to be able to offer a selection of works from their storied collection for sale this spring. Highlights include major paintings by Bhupen Khakhar, Manjit Bawa, Arpita Singh and Sayed Haider Raza with impressive exhibition histories, appearing at auction for the first time. Also included are exceptional works by Maqbool Fida Husain, Rameshwar Broota, Jogen Chowdhury and Jagadish Swaminathan, all close friends of the collectors."

The most important highlight from the duo's collection is a 1984 oil on canvas by Bhupen Khakhar (1934-2004), titled The Banyan Tree. It is estimated between $1,800,000 and $ 2,500,000 (approx. Rs 13.5 crore and Rs 18.8 crore). At that estimate, it is likely to set the auction record for the self-taught Khakhar, who is widely regarded as India's first pop artist.

Untitled (Devi) by Manjit Bawa (1941-2008), a 1993 oil on canvas is also one of the top-billed works on offer. It is estimated to fetch between $600,000 and $800,000 (approx. Rs 4.5 crore and Rs 6 crore).

Other important lots on offer include ̛major paintings by the country's evergreen popular masters such as S. H. Raza, M. F. Husain, Arpita Singh, Rameshwar Broota, Jogen Chowdhury and Jagadish Swaminathan to name some, all of whom are or were great friends of the collectors.

Part II of the South Asian Modern + Contemporary Art auction is be led by an important group of works from an esteemed private collection including remarkable paintings by Vasudeo S. Gaitonde, Francis Newton Souza, Jehangir Sabavala, Ram Kumar and S. H. Raza among others, representing the best of South Asian modernism. Complementing these is a fine group of paintings by Souza from the collection of Peter Jackson, acquired in the 1960s and held privately in the United Kingdom for over half a century. Other highlights of the auction are a monumental painting by Gulammohammed Sheikh, unseen in public for almost 30 years, and significant works by Zarina, Natvar Bhavsar, Bikash Bhattacharjee, Sri Lankan modernist George Keyt and Bangladeshi legend Mohammad Kibria.

Who are Mahinder and Sharad Tak?

Mahinder and Sharad Tak are well-known as philanthropists and are the leading members of the strong Indian-American community in the U.S. Mahinder is a radiation oncologist who also served in the U.S. army and retired as colonel. An M.B.B.S. from Lady Hardinge College, New Delhi, she moved to the U.S. for specialization in radiation (oncology). She was soon married to Sharad Tak, an electrical engineering graduate from IIT-Bombay, who was among the first class to receive a Master of Science in computer science from the University of Buffalo.

Sharad Tak established the System and Applied Sciences Corporation. Later renamed ST Systems Corporation (STX), it provided programming and systems integration services to NASA, Federal Aviation Administration and Department of Defense among others. STX reached approx. $70 million in sales in 1991 when Tak sold it to Hughes Aircraft.

Sharad and Mahinder Tak have been involved in fund-raising campaigns for prominent Americans such as former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and former president Barack Obama.

Over the decades, the duo has built a strong collection of Indian art which they have showcased to their friends in the US regularly. According to Christie's, Mahinder Tak would visit galleries on her annual trips to India, inevitably purchasing one or two pieces for her home. But it was her meeting with Maqbool Fida Husain in early 1980s in the U.S., when she turned into a serious collector of art. Since then, along with her husband, Mahinder has grown into a formidable force for the promotion of Indian art, opening up appreciation for it in the U.S. much before it became a hot property on the global art market.

The couple's home in Bethesda, Maryland, is renowned for housing works by the who's who of modern Indian art. Besides visual artists, the couple has, over the years, hosted a range of Indian artistes such as musicians, dancers, poets and actors, including Ustad Vilayat Khan, Ustad Allah Rakha, Pt. Shiv Kumar Sharma, Amjad Ali Khan, Zakir Hussain and Kaifi Azmi among others. They have also played host to Pakistani artistes such as Abida Parveen, Mehdi Hassan and Faiz Ahmed Faiz, to name a few.

(The writer is a New Delhi-based journalist, editor and arts consultant. She blogs at archanakhareghose.com)