Upcoming auctions offer glimpse into future of South Asian art mkt

The drumroll for the year’s first big auction season has begun with the Saffronart Live Spring auction getting underway in four days from now (which this column dealt with in detail last week). While we wait for records to be broken or made in that particular sale, let us turn our attention to the next big sale off the block, the Sotheby’s Modern & Contemporary South Asian Art auction in New York on March 18. It will also have an accompanying auction, the sale of The Virginia and Ravi Akhoury Collection of South Asian art.

As is always the case, the top lots on offer are by the names that Indian art collectors don’t tire of buying - SH Raza, MF Husain, FN Souza, and increasingly Bhupen Khakhar. The stock of the works of Narayan Shridhar Bendre has also been rising steadily for the past few years, and this auction too features two important works by him. But first, I will begin with the works at the very top of the table.

The Top Lots

Kallisté, which in Greek means ‘the most beautiful’, is the stunning abstract landscape by SH Raza (1922-2016) that is the most prized work on offer at the Sotheby’s Modern & Contemporary South Asian Art auction. This oil on canvas from 1959 by one of India’s most valued artists ever, is estimated at $2,000,000 – $3,000,000 (approx. Rs 16.5 crore – Rs 24.8 crore).

The auction catalogue has an enlightening write-up on this seminal work. It comes from a very important phase of the artist’s career, which it calls ‘The Age of the Lover,’ as described by renowned art critic of Bombay, Rudy von Leyden (1908-1983). It was painted the same year Raza, who had by then spent a decade living in France, got married to his fellow classmate from École des Beaux-Arts, Paris — Janine Mongillat. The catalogue states: ‘Painted in 1959, the same year as Raza’s marriage to Mongillat, Kallisté is one of a selection of landmark works that represent the crowning moment of the Age of the Lover.’ It is a quintessential Raza work of the period; he had shifted from Paris to the south of France in the mid-1950s, where the pristine French countryside became his source of inspiration. Kallisté too is an invocation of French countryside with bright red, yellow and green in the foreground evoking the lush natural vegetation. For a student of art, the canvas is deeply significant for it shows the progression of Raza’s realist landscapes—which he was painting till a few years before—breaking down into abstract landscapes, such as Kallisté. These would eventually lead to him successfully essaying Abstract Expressionism, which in turn would lead to the crowning glory of his career, Geometrical Expressionism as expressed through Indian abstraction or Bindu.

The next most expensive work on offer is Head by Akbar Padamsee (1928-2020), a 1962 oil on canvas. It is estimated $600,000 - $800,000 (approx. Rs 4.9 crore – Rs 6.6 crore). A work by Bhupen Khakhar (1934-2003), titled Hatha Yogi, is next in line, estimated at $500,000 – $700,000 (approx. Rs 4.1 crore – Rs 5.7 crore). Another Raza work, Untitled, acrylic on canvas from 1978 is the next most expensive lot on offer. It is estimated at $450,000 – $650,000 (approx. Rs 3.7 crore – Rs 5.3 crore). The next positions as per estimates are occupied by: Savita, Bhupen Khakhar, oil on canvas, estimated at $300,000 - $ 500,000 (approx. Rs 2.4 crore – Rs 4.1 crore); Nocturne, Jehangir Sabavala (1922-2011), oil on canvas, 1965; Untitled (Blackscape), S. H. Raza, oil on board, 1953; Tout Houses, SH Raza, gouache on paper, 1952 — all three estimated at $250,000 - $350,000 (approx. Rs 2 crore – Rs 2.8 crore); Untitled, Nasreen Mohamedi (1937-1990), oil on canvas, 1969; Roadside Temple, Atul Dodiya (b. 1959), oil on canvas, 1988 — both estimated at $150,000 - $200,000 (approx. Rs 1.2 crore – Rs 1.6 crore).

While that makes up the top 10 list at this auction, it’s refreshing to see ever newer names in that haloed bracket, such as Nasreen Mohamedi and Atul Dodiya in this one. Other names that feature in the auction that add variety to the lots on offer and also to the names that we must learn to know for the promise they hold for the broadbasing of the market include modernist and experimentalist sculptor Dhanraj Bhagat (1917-1988), one of the most important Bangladeshi artists Zainul Abedin (1914-1976), and N. S. Bendre (1910-1992) to name a few.

Bhagat’s highly modernist mild steel sculpture, titled Shiva’s Dance, is on offer at the estimated price of $120,000 - $180,000 (approx. Rs 99 lakh to Rs 1.4 crore). Of late, the auction market has warmed up to modernist sculptors whose works have gone for prices way beyond their estimates, such as Amar Nath Sehgal and Meera Mukherjee. The offer price for Bhagat’s work indicates that the auction market, indeed, is beginning to take note of an important phase of modernism in Indian sculpture.

Abedin’s Untitled (Couple), a 1963 oil on canvas, is estimated at $100,000 - $150,000 (approx. Rs 82.7 lakh – Rs 1.2 crore). This poetic rendition of a Santhal couple positioned in a lush green Bengal countryside evoke nostalgia of a land that saw great social disruption at the hands of political fault lines, both in 1947 and 1971, and which informed a large number of artists hailing from the region, including Abedin. Like Chittaprosad, he too prolifically sketched and painted the devastating, man-made famine of Bengal of 1943. He was born in Kendua in present-day West Bengal, and moved to East Pakistan upon Partition of the subcontinent in 1947. He pioneered the modern art movement in East Pakistan and Bangladesh, and was honoured with the title of ‘Shilpacharya’ by the Bangladeshi government. His work should generate active interest among collectors at this auction.

The Virginia and Ravi Akhoury Collection

Another auction of South Asian art that will take place the same day as the above described auction is that of The Virginia and Ravi Akhoury Collection. It features 25 lots on offer, among which F. N. Souza’s House with Trees is right on top. Souza’s early career work, from 1958, is made in oil and marker on board and is estimated at $300,000 - $500,000 (approx. Rs 2.4 crore – Rs 4.1 crore). An endearing work by Kattingeri Krishna Hebbar (1911-1996), Untitled (Mother and Child), painted circa 1960s, is estimated at $100,000 - $150,000 (approx. Rs 82.7 lakh – Rs 1.2 crore). It is absolutely charming with the child nestled in his mother’s lap and both intently looking at a toy elephant, whose string lies in the child’s hand. In modernist strokes, it evokes the charm of Indian art in early years of Independence, of which Hebbar was a strong representative.

Both the auctions have some superlative works and must be a treat to behold, especially if they succeed in making some new records.

(The writer is a New Delhi-based arts journalist)