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O n 29 September, Sotheby's in London will host the bi-annual Modern & Contemporary South Asian Art Auction. The star lot of the sale is Maqbool Fida Husain’s vibrant masterpiece Mithuna Crimson, but, with 73 total lots to choose from—including works by Bhupen Khakhar, Francis Newton Souza, and Sayed Haider Raza—it's hard to select just one favorite.
Instead, we chose twelve. Below are highlight lots from the sale that you should save, or bid on, now.
Following his transformative visit to Benares with fellow artist Ram Kumar in 1959, M.F. Husain produced some of the most evocative works of his career, using the sacred city as a lens through which to explore themes of ritual, mortality and renewal. While Husain's vast oeuvre can at times appear reliant on familiar motifs and recurring visual formulas, this painting stands apart for the depth of its subject matter and the sophistication of its construction. Bulls, temples, sadhus and pilgrims dissolve into a richly worked surface of blues, reds and ochres, creating a composition that hovers between figuration and abstraction. Rather than simply depicting the city, Husain captures its spiritual and sensory intensity, allowing architecture, landscape and human activity to merge into a dynamic, almost mosaic-like picture plane. The result is a work of rare complexity, balancing the immediacy of Husain's iconic imagery with a playful formal experimentation.
Still Life belongs to F.N. Souza's celebrated series of liturgical paintings, in which chalices, monstrances and sacred vessels assume an icon-like presence. Here, four objects dominate, appearing almost architectural despite the work's intimate jeweled scale. Defined by Souza's characteristic black contouring, cross-hatching and richly worked surface, the vessels oscillate between object and symbol, abstraction and devotion. In a characteristically rebellious gesture, Souza transfers a sense of sacredness to these ecclesiastical forms—something he often denied to the human figures in his oeuvre, reflecting his lifelong and conflicted engagement with the Catholic faith of his Goan upbringing.
This landscape exemplifies Bakre's distinctive synthesis of abstraction and structure developed during his years in Britain. Clusters of houses are organized through a rhythmic linear framework, recalling the tightly knit habitations that appear in Italian pre-Renaissance and Renaissance painting. Using a muted palette, the composition balances freedom of color with strong architectural order and a single playful tree. It was acquired by the present owner's family through the influential Treadwell Mobile Gallery, Nicholas Treadwell's pioneering travelling exhibition programme that brought contemporary art to audiences across Britain. This provenance further situates the work within an important chapter of British post-war artistic exchange and patronage.
Germination belongs to the mature phase of Raza's career, when the 'bindu' (a dot) became the defining motif of his artistic and spiritual vision. At the center is a commanding black circle and from there the composition unfolds through a harmonious arrangement of geometric forms and vibrant colors inspired by Indian philosophical concepts, yantras and mandalas. The title evokes the emergence of life from a seed, reflecting Raza's understanding of the bindu as the source of creation and cosmic energy.
Queen of Hearts reflects a pivotal moment in Prabhakar Barwe's early artistic development, shaped by his experience at the Weavers' Service Centre in Varanasi, where he developed a lasting sensitivity to pattern and structure. Transforming familiar playing-card imagery into a carefully ordered and contemplative composition, Barwe imbues the central queen with a talismanic presence. Exhibited at the Indian Pavilion in Montreal in 1968 and later owned by pioneering collector George M. Butcher, the painting marks an important stage in the emergence of one of modern India's most distinctive abstractionists.
Shemza's geometric works on paper distill the concerns of an artist who sought to reconcile Islamic visual traditions with the language of international modernism. Executed in ink with remarkable precision, these compositions transform simple squares, semicircles and intersecting lines into dynamic systems of rhythm and balance. Following his move from Pakistan to Britain in 1956, Shemza increasingly abandoned figuration in favor of an abstract vocabulary rooted in Islamic geometry, calligraphy and architecture. He eventually developed a highly distinctive visual language that transcended cultural boundaries. Elegant in their economy and intellectual rigor, these works reveal the artist's enduring fascination with order, repetition and the infinite possibilities of geometric form.
This 1973 portfolio marks a pivotal moment in Zarina's practice, when she began developing the visual language that would define her career: spare geometric forms and a profound sensitivity to space, light and touch. Portfolios occupied a central place in her oeuvre, providing a framework to explore repetition and sequence across multiple sheets. Here, blind embossing and string replace color and form, allowing images to emerge through texture and shadow alone. Balancing the reductive aesthetics of Minimalism with an enduring engagement with architecture and geometry, the portfolio exemplifies the quiet precision and material intelligence for which Zarina is celebrated.
A compelling example of Rabindranath Tagore's late work, Untitled (Head of a Woman) reveals the remarkable freedom and psychological depth that distinguish his paintings. Internationally celebrated as the first non-European Nobel Laureate in Literature, Tagore turned seriously to painting only in the final decade of his life. He would go on to develop an intensely personal visual language independent of both academic training and the dominant schools of Indian art. Emerging from spontaneous marks and improvisational brushwork, his enigmatic faces occupy a space between portrait, dream and archetype. Here, the subject's introspective gaze and sculptural modeling are rendered with an economy of means that lends the work a haunting presence. Coming from the distinguished Dartington estate, whose founders Leonard and Dorothy Elmhirst shared close intellectual and cultural ties with Tagore and Santiniketan, the work also carries an exceptional historical resonance. Balancing modernist experimentation with profound psychological insight, the painting exemplifies the singular vision of one of the twentieth century's most influential cultural figures.
Created during Huma Bhabha's residency at the American Academy in Berlin and exhibited soon after in her first solo exhibition at VeneKlasen/Werner Gallery, Untitled exemplifies the singular visual language of the Pakistani-born American artist. Distinct within South Asian contemporary art, Bhabha's work draws less from regional artistic traditions than from a rich amalgam of classical mythology, science fiction, horror cinema and post-war European art. Animated by vivid color and gestural intensity, the spectral figure oscillates between ancient idol, alien apparition and psychological portrait, reflecting Bhabha's enduring exploration of identity, migration and the shifting nature of belonging.
This work is a compelling example of Keyt's distinctive fusion of South Asian tradition and modernist experimentation. A founder of Sri Lanka's influential '43 Group, Keyt developed a highly personal visual language in which elongated figures, bold contours and luminous color combine with the structural innovations of Cubism. Here, three female vendors are transformed into monumental, interlocking forms, their overlapping bodies creating a rhythmic composition animated by vibrant pinks, ochres, greens and oranges. Balancing sensuality with abstraction, the painting elevates an everyday scene into a timeless celebration of the feminine form and stands as a powerful expression of Keyt's enduring engagement with the people and artistic heritage of the Indian subcontinent.
Painted shortly after his graduation from the Faculty of Fine Arts, Baroda, and just before departing for London as a Commonwealth Scholar, Sacrifice captures Vivan Sundaram at a formative moment in his career. While predating the explicitly political practice for which he later became known, the work already reveals many of the concerns that would define his lifelong engagement with leftist thought: the human body as a site of vulnerability, the rituals through which power is enacted, and the individual's place within larger social structures. The monumental figure, rendered through a vibrant vocabulary of stripes, checks and symbolic motifs, balances folk imagery with the bold formal language of international modernism.
A rare example of Choudhury's celebrated tapestry practice, this circular composition highlights the artist's distinctive fusion of Bangladeshi folk traditions and international modernism. Trained in Dhaka, Madrid and Paris, Choudhury brought a painterly sensibility to tapestry, combining rich color, bold abstraction and rhythmic pattern into highly sophisticated woven works. Circular tapestries occupy a particularly special place within his oeuvre, as their production presented significant technical challenges and were created only on rare occasions. With its sculptural presence and exceptional rarity, this piece stands as a remarkable example of Choudhury's mastery of the medium.
