On August 20-21, Christie’s will hold an exhibition in New Delhi of 13 top notch works by leading modern Indian masters from its upcoming annual blockbuster sale of South Asian Modern + Contemporary Art. The public exhibition will take place at the Taj Mahal Hotel in New Delhi and will offer a snapshot view of the auction house’s annual and highly anticipated sale in New York, to be held on September 17.This is the 20th year of the modern and contemporary Indian art sales at Christie’s.The highlight of the sale and the New Delhi exhibition is Francis Newton Souza’s oil on board painting “Birth,” which is also the most expensive Souza work ever sold. It had fetched $2.5million (£1.3 million) at a Christie’s sale on June 11, 2008, and at that time, had been the most expensive Indian painting ever sold. At the upcoming Christie’s auction in September, it is expected to fetch $2,200,000-$2,800,000 (approx. Rs 14.3 crore – Rs 18.2 crore).The importance of the “Birth” lies in the fact that it carries all the distinctive characters that occur in early paintings by the artist – the nude, the priest, still life and townscape. Painted in London in 1955, this work is widely considered the apex of Souza’s art of that decade. The year 1955 was important in Souza’s career as that’s when he got his first solo exhibition in London, hosted by Victor Musgrave’s Gallery One.Souza was born in Goa in 1924 and moved to Britain in 1949. According to information available with Christie’s, Souza had to struggle a lot as a painter in London as the art circle didn’t quite open up to him. The turnaround started to happen after he met author Stephen Spender in 1954, who helped him with vital introductions to London’s art society. After some years, Souza shifted to New York; he passed away in Mumbai in 2002. A rare work by Vasudeo S. Gaitonde, the current hot favourite among the top modern Indian masters, is also going to be a part of the exhibition. It’s a rare figurative work from early 1950s by the artist who has won tremendous international acclaim for his abstract art. This untitled work in watercolour and ink on card is expected to fetch $25,000-$35,000 (approx. Rs 16 lakh – Rs 18.2 lakh). The color of the painting and the figures in it – four women in a garden with peacocks – are reminiscent of miniature paintings.Gaitonde (1924-2001), who was born in Nagpur and lived and worked in New Delhi, currently holds the record of the most expensive Indian signature in art; his untitled abstract oil on canvas (1979) sold for $3.7 million (Rs 23.70 crore) at the inaugural Mumbai auction by Christie’s in December 2013. The artist, who led a reclusive life, has been the subject of a major retrospective by the Guggenheim Museum in New York that would be travelling to the Peggy Guggenheim Museum in Venice in October.Quite like the rare figurative work by Gaitonde is another exceptional figurative work by another leading modern master, Ram Kumar, who is generally known for his abstracts. The previously undiscovered figurative oil on canvas (Untitled (Couple)) by the New Delhi-based artist is expected to fetch $60,000-$80,000 (approx. Rs 39 lakh –Rs 52 lakh). According to Christie’s, the canvas painted in the late 1950s, during the time Kumar spent in Paris, shows the influence of European modernist Amedeo Modiglian. The two figures on a dark green background offer an insight into the artist’s creative process that led to his abstract paintings of 1960s. Kumar, who was born in Shimla in 1924, is the brother of the renowned Hindi author Nirmal Verma.An untitled cityscape of Paris by New Delhi-based Syed Haider Raza (born 1922) is another highlight of the exhibition. Estimated at $450,000-$600,000 (approx. Rs 2.9 crore-Rs 3.9 crore), it is believed to be a view from the artist’s modest first studio on Rue de Fosseés St. Jacques. Raza, born in village Babaria in Madhya Pradesh, moved to Mumbai as a young man. He lived in Paris for 60 years, from 1950 when he went on a scholarship by the French government to attend École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts until 2010 when he moved back to India, to settle down in the capital. One of the most valued modern Indian masters, the most expensive Raza painting ever sold is “La Terre,” fetching Rs 18.61 crore at a Christie’s auction in 2014.Deepanjana Klein, Christie’s International Head of Contemporary Indian Art, comments in a press statement: “Modern Indian Art is now seen in a different light following the Vasudeo S. Gaitonde retrospective at the Guggenheim Museum in New York which will travel to Venice in the autumn. Christie's as market leader is the only auction house to commit to offering South Asian Art consistently in three locations - New York, London and Mumbai. Each sale is well-supported by an increasingly international group of collectors who show their appreciation for the art from the region. [The year] 2015 marks 20 years of South Asian Art sales at Christie's, and following the New York sale in September, we are delighted that a third sale will be held in India in December.”It is interesting to note that the top shots at this auction, just as at any other auction of modern and contemporary Indian art, all hail from the seminal Progressive Artists Group that was founded by Souza, Raza, M.F. Husain, K.H. Ara, H.A. Gade and S.K. Bakre in 1947 to give a truly modern Indian idiom to art practised in the country. Other important artists who soon got associated with the group included Tyeb Mehta, Akbar Padamsee, Ram Kumar, Gaitonde, Krishen Khanna, Manishi Dey and Mohan Samant among others. Almost seven decades since the formation, the group continues to remain the most influential group of Indian art ever created, with its importance growing strongly with each passing year.The preview will be held at the Taj Mahal Hotel in New Delhi on August 20-21. It is free and open to the public.Follow @ARTINFOIndia
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