The largest known work made by Vasudeo S Gaitonde (1924-2001), initially created as a commission for the Air India Building in Mumbai in 1960, is coming up for sale at Sotheby’s auction of Modern & Contemporary South Asian art to be held in New York on March 15.Expected to fetch $2.5m - $3.5m (approx. Rs 16.98 crore to Rs 23.78 crore), it is within striking range of another untitled oil on canvas by the master that currently is the most expensive Indian painting ever sold in an auction (it had fetched Rs 29.30 crore at a Christie’s auction last year). This will be first of the seven auctions marking the Asia Week (March 10-19).The painting coming up at Sotheby’s auction has a rather rare blue-gray and cloudy palette – in keeping with the original commission, perhaps. However, instead of reaching the Air India Building, the painting reached the residence of eminent painter, artist and friend of Gaitonde, Bal Chhabda who bought it before it was finished and gave it a place of prominence in his home, next to a Tyeb Mehta work for years, informs Yamini Mehta, International Head of Modern & Contemporary South Asian Art shared with Blouin Artinfo while on a visit to New Delhi recently.Recently, this painting was featured in featured in the first comprehensive art historical and biographic record on the artist, published to accompany the exhibition “V. S. Gaitonde: Painting as Process, Painting as Life” at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York and the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice. It measures 152 X 262.5 cm.The other highlights of the auction include two national treasures, one each by Amrita Sher-Gil and Raja Ravi Varma. What makes these two works seminal is the fact that these are one of the very few works by these artists available internationally; as these artists are national treasures, their works cannot be exported out of India.If we saw portraits – self as well as of others – by Sher-Gil at auctions last year, then this auction throws up a different one altogether. It is a rare and important landscape titled ‘In the Garden’ and estimated to fetch $1.8m to $3m (approx. Rs 12.22 crore to Rs 20.36 crore). Talking about this work, Mehta said, “This is an absolutely wonderful canvas which says so much about Amrita. It was painted during a period of reflection while staying at her grandmother’s place in Hungary and marked a shift in her style of painting. The composition and architecture take after characteristics of Indian court painting.”The painting, as Mehta informs, was made by Sher-Gil in Zebegenyi, outside Budapest and near Lake Balloton. In 1938, shortly after marrying her first cousin Victor Egan, Sher-Gil spent a quiet winter at the family house. This work was in the collection of Victor Egan’s sister , Viola, and passed to her heirs.The other national treasure artist whose work is on offer is Raja Ravi Varma (1848-1906), who was the first artist to marry European salon techniques to Indian themes. His paintings are known for rich details, both on the chief subject as well as in the background. He is also the painter who is known to have popularized Hindu gods and goddesses through calendar art. His work that is coming up for sale at the Sotheby’s auction is an untitled (Portrait of a Young Woman in Russet and Crimson Sari) oil on canvas from circa 1890s. Expected to fetch between $200,000 and $250,000 (approx. Rs 1.35 crore – Rs 1.69 crore), it was in the collection of Raja Ravi Varma’s German printer, Fritz Schleicher, who had acquired it in 1903.A 1960 oil on canvas by Sayed Haider Raza, titled “Mistral” too has an interesting provenance. It was once part of the collection of Galerie Lara Vincy who first championed his art after he moved to Paris in 1950s. A rare work from the same collection is “Cagnes-sur-Mer” a paper work from 1952 that Vincy kept personally.Of special interest will be works by Bhupen Khakhar (1934-2003), the internationally acclaimed artist who is going to garner some more global attention with his first posthumous survey at Tate Modern that opens on June 1. The group of works at the Sotheby’s auction come from the private collection of Nanubhai and Savitaben Amin of Baroda for whom Khakhar worked as an accountant and who in turn became his earliest patrons. Some works from this collection are “Church & Gardener,” “Om” and “Rose” to name a few.There are seminal works by M F Husain, Jehangir Sabavala, F N Souza and Jagadish Swaminathan among other important artists from the Indian pantheon. Follow@ARTINFOIndia
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