NEW DELHI, May 17: Works by some famous artists from the contemporary and modern period in India, including F N Souza, S H Raza, M F Husain, including those from the Bengal school like Sudhir Khastgir and Ramkinkar Baij are set to feature in the upcoming Modern and Contemporary South Asian Art sale in London.
The sale on 27 May by international auction house Bonhams is reflective of the interest in Indian art in recent years and an increased awareness for South Asian modern painting that has catapulted many previously relatively unknown names to become household names.
Leading the sale is an Untitled (Landscape) by Souza, which depicts a frenzied and foreboding world that has been estimated at Rs 1.4 million – Rs 1. 7 million (15,000 pounds to 18,000 pounds).
Souza is known for his energetic and often highly erotic work, and has achieved record-breaking prices for Indian artists over the years.
The famed critic John Berger described him as an artist who “straddles many traditions but serves none.”
“Souza brings a sense of macabre, black comedy to his work,” Tahmina Ghaffar, Head of Sale for Modern and Contemporary South Asian Art said.
“This piece is a wonderful example of the wild and farcical phase he went through during the early sixties,” she said.
Souza had founded the Bombay Progressive Artists’ Group in 1947, a formative movement that aimed to propel Indian modern art onto the international stage.
Other sale highlights are works by Zarina Hashmi and Nalini Malani. New York based Indian artist Zarina Hashmi is well known for her versatility in medium, and her abstract, minimal style. Her ‘Ghar’ (house) sculpture is estimated at Rs 5,80,000 – Rs 7,70,000 (6,000 pounds – 8,000 pounds.
She was one of the five artists selected to be in India’s first entry to the Venice Biennale, and has had retrospectives at the Hammer Museum LA, the Art Institute of Chicago and the Guggenheim New York.
“This rare sculpture, one of the two lots on offer by Hashmi at the sale, is a wonderfully minimalist commentary on the movement of people and the search for an identity beyond mere national borders,” Ghaffar said.
More well known for her video art and installations, Nalini Malani’s work is a visceral and vibrant oil painting estimated between Rs 1.4 million- 1.9 million (15,000- 19,000 pounds)
In 2013 Malani became the first Asian woman to receive the Arts and Culture Fukuoka Prize for her “consistent focus on such daring contemporary and universal themes as religious conflict, war, oppression of women and environmental destruction.”
In October 2017, Nalini Malani is set to be the first Indian artist to have a retrospective at the Centre Pompidou in Paris.
The sale also includes works from the Bengal School, including Sudhir Khastgir and Ramkinkar Baij, demonstrating the early influence of East Asian wash techniques and the emerging pan Asian aesthetic.
The influence of these early artists, straddling the era of British rule and Independence, feeds into the contemporary pieces in the sale by Bikash Bhattacharjee and Sakti Burman.
Romanticised, idyllic pastoral scenes by Sailoz Mookherjea and Husain are offered along with more conventionally modernist works by Souza and Raza.
“The sale features a number of works fresh to the market from esteemed private collections in Europe and the US, catering to the growing sophistication of Indian art collectors. We’re confident we will continue our trajectory of success in the Indian art market,” Ghaffar said. (PTI)
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