Indian & South Asian Modern & Contemporary Art

10 Important Modern and Contemporary South Asian Art Highlights

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The upcoming Modern and Contemporary South Asian Art auction comprises stellar artworks from the 20th and 21st centuries by some of the most important artists from India and the subcontinent. An exciting and diverse selection of works will be featured, including paintings by Rabindranath Tagore, Maqbool Fida Husain and Sayed Haider Raza. Click above to see highlights from the sale.

Past Auction
Modern and Contemporary South Asian Art
23 October 2018 | 1:00 PM BST | London

10 Important Modern and Contemporary South Asian Art Highlights

  • Rabindranath Tagore, Untitled (Head of a Woman)
    Rabindranath Tagore
    Untitled (Head of a Woman), 1939
    Estimate £300,000-500,000
    Rabindranath Tagore, one of the most esteemed poet-philosophers of his time, was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1913. Untitled (Head of a Woman) has a rich provenance, hailing from the collection of Leonard Elmhirst, founder of Dartington Hall - an institution which promoted education, research and commercial endeavours. Tagore, who originally advised Elmhirst to found Dartington, visited the estate on several occasions, creating a series of paintings and sketches there during a visit in the 1930s, which have achieved record-breaking prices at auction.
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  • Sayed Haider Raza, La Terre, 1980
    Sayed Haider Raza
    La Terre, 1980
    Estimate £700,000-900,000
    Sayed Haider Raza considered black to be the mother of all colours and in La Terre she dominates the canvas. Fiery earthy tones are enveloped within an impending darkness. Through the energetic lines and shapes which flit across the canvas, Raza depicts the rhythms of nature. La Terre is a tour de force – a testament to Raza’s intellectual aptitude and artistic brilliance, imparting his complex and theoretical thoughts into a masterpiece of great beauty and fluidity.
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  • Francis Newton Souza, Untitled (Liturgical Objects)
    Francis Newton Souza
    Untitled (Liturgical Objects), 1959-60
    Estimate £250,000-350,000
    Featured here is an important still life painting by Francis Newton Souza executed between 1959 and 1960, built around a powerfully ecclesiastical theme. The vessels of the Eucharist set upon the altar, and the checkerboard background which reflects the clerical vestments worn by priests, both lend to the overtly religious sentiment of the painting. The liturgical references and formal layout of the objects across the table have appeared in a number of Souza’s earlier works, however, in the current painting, the vibrant colours set against the dark backdrop have a particularly bold and lasting impact.
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  • Ram Kumar, Untitled, 1970
    Ram Kumar
    Untitled, 1970
    Estimate £50,000-70,000
    From the late 1960s, Ram Kumar’s landscapes became increasingly condensed and deconstructed. The current work straddles the boundaries between abstraction and realism, depicting the Himalayan foothills through layered planes of blue, brown, white and ochre. The sombre tones still echo the sense of quiet contemplation present in Kumar’s earlier canvases, yet their inherent lyricism and calm reveals a profound sense of introspection and perhaps a greater confidence in the artistic process itself.
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  • Maqbool Fida Husain, Untitled (Fertility), late 1960s
    Maqbool Fida Husain
    Untitled (Fertility), late 1960s
    Estimate £200,000-300,000
    Untitled (Fertility) comprises a seated man and woman constructed of sharp, angular lines, gestural brushstrokes and blocks of colour, powerfully demonstrating the more abstract-expressionist style Maqbool Fida Husain was employing at this point in his career. This painting references motherhood, signaled here by the yellow-orange sphere, representative of the womb, which glows from within the woman’s figure. This subject carries personal significance for the artist, having lost his own mother when he was less than two years old.
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  • Arpita Singh
    Don’t Cross Central Park at Night, 1995
    Estimate £40,000-60,000
    The bright colours, childish scrawlings and dream-like perspective of Arpita Singh’s work, all stand in sharp contrast to the charged themes that she routinely explores. The ominous forewarning of the title Don’t Cross Central Park at Night which is branded across the canvas and the cowering nude female figure who lies above it, signal one such theme. Women are central to the Singh’s ouevre, and in this painting, the artist speaks broadly to the hardship, obstacles and violence faced by women in places stretching far beyond Central Park’s perimeter.
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  • Bikash Bhattacharjee
    Untitled (School Children), 1976
    Estimate £30,000-50,000
    In this 1976 work, Bikash Bhattacharjee presents grey, androgynous and dismembered children sat at classroom desks. As with much of the artist’s oeuvre, this painting was informed by the personal and societal struggles he witnessed growing up in Calcutta, specifically speaking to the limitations which plagued the city’s youth. The composition, subject matter and palette, all contribute to the haunting quality of the painting, in a manner that is quintessentially Bhattacharjee.
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  • Sayed Haider Raza
    Aaj, 1970
    Estimate £35,000-45,000
    Western abstractionists may have influenced Sayed Haider Raza, but the vibrant and masterful use of colours was entirely his own. The Devanagari script inscribed on the canvas reads the Hindi word aaj, meaning ‘today’, and this work proudly announces exactly that: today, a spirit of freshness, the new, of a truly Indian abstraction, and a vital force for advancing history.
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  • George Keyt
    Lovers, 1935
    Estimate £20,000-40,000
    Lovers is a classic example of George Keyt’s work from the 1930s onwards, when Cubism became a guiding force in his artistic production. This luxurious figure study, which shows a couple daringingly yet gracefully entwined, hails from the collection of the foremost patron of the Sri Lankan avant-garde, Martin Russell. A tasteful synthesis of forms and artistic concepts, Lovers is a study of sensuousness and grace.
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  • Maqbool Fida Husain
    Living Goddess, circa 1960s
    Estimate £40,000-60,000
    In this dynamic and colourful work from the 1960s, Maqbool Fida Husain references the Hindu tradition of Kumari, whereby a ‘Living Goddess’ is selected for worship from the Newari community in Nepal. Husain’s ‘Living Goddess’ is depicted atop a tower, flanked by a variety of animal forms. With its richly coloured shapes and intriguing motifs, this painting is an excellent example of the artist’s visually arresting and symbolically charged oeuvre.
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