Category: Auction House

Thank you for participating in our recently concluded ‘South Asian Art – Modern & Contemporary’ auction!

The results are in with 85% of lots sold (42 of 49 lots sold), 93% estimate value sold, and a total sales of USD 1,889,000.

Visit our website at www.artiana.com for the complete auction results & analysis.

Auction Catalogue – South Asian Art – ‘Modern and Contemporary’ – September 24 – 28, 2020

Sayed Haider Raza has stated, “sometime between 1975 and 1980, I began to feel the draw of my Indian heritage. I thought: I come from India, I have a different vision; I should incorporate what I have learned in France with Indian concepts. In this period, I visited India every year to study Indian philosophy, iconography, magic diagrams (yantras), an ancient Indian art, particularly Hindu, Buddhist, and Jain art. I was impressed by paintings from Basholi, Malwa, and Mewar, and began combining colors in a manner that echoed Indian miniature painting.” (Raza in conversation with Amrita Jhaveri, Sotheby’s Preview, March/April 2007, p.57).

Titled “Prakriti” or Nature, the painting reflects the artist’s lifelong commitment to depicting nature and its colors in his canvases. Evolving from his initial academic landscapes and abstracted expressionism on the same subject, Raza delved into the purest form of nature. Removing all inessential to attain the simplest interpretation. 

He singularly used colors that naturally exist in the visible world, the primary palette of red, blue, yellow, white, and black to represent the fundamental elements in creation – fire, water, earth, sky, and air. 
To underscore his non-representative vocabulary and maintain the geometric symbolism that he adopted later in his career, Raza deploys the inverted triangle – symbolic of female sexuality and reproduction with the bindu – symbolic of the seed that bears the potential of new life. Depicted together, they represent the tree of life and the perpetual cycle of nature, of fertilization, germination, growth, reproduction, and ultimately death.

Auction Catalogue – South Asian Art – ‘Modern and Contemporary’ – September 24 – 28, 2020

Much like his predecessors and peers, M.F. Husain was drawn to the subject of India’s colonial past. He started working on a series of Raj theme paintings that embody his take on this period of Indian history by the 1980s. Dubbed originally as the ‘Images of the Raj’ when the artist first started producing them, their themes and motifs would subsequently spill over to Husain’s succeeding series until the later part of his life. But compared to other artist’s serious treatment of the subject, Husain’s Raj bordered on the satirical, combining elements of history and witty commentary on the effects of Raj on society and oftentimes juxtaposing contrasting subjects in the painting to illustrated the opposing dynamics present, ‘each subtly absorbing the identity of the other and each equally subtly resisting that absorption.’ (D. Herwitz, Husain, 1988, p. 19.)

Arguably one of Husain’s more popular series, the period of British colonial rule or most commonly referred to as the Raj, resulted in some of the sharpest, perceptive, and also most spirited, of works that he produced throughout his prolific career. “These works are densely packed with objects and people (British and native, high and low, male and female) and some animals as well, brought together in narrative action enormously revealing of the anxieties of imperial rule in India, even as their absurdities elicit a chuckle or smile from the viewer.” (Sumathi Ramaswamy, Husain’s Raj, The Marg Foundation, June 2016, pg. 12) 

Titled ‘Afternoon Tea after the Kill,’ Husain depicts two of the most British tradition during the era, tea time and tiger hunting. With the sport referred to as ‘colonial hunt.’ The picture alludes to the defeat of the tiger, the conquest of India, and the eventual lengthy crown rule that follows. But aside from the obvious interpretation, the fallen animal was depicted resembling ‘Tipu’s Tiger,’ a mechanical tiger savaging a British soldier commissioned for Tipu Sultan, ruler of Mysore, and one of the fiercest and implacable enemies of the British. He was, however, defeated and killed in 1799. While the ‘colonial hunt’ represented domination of nature and natives, it also became the point of contention within the elite due to the perceived connection between hunting, power, and privilege, as hunting came to be regulated by laws by the 1900s.

Like his other paintings, his figures are intentionally obscure with vague references to historical figures that are often intentionally fictionalized. Here, the featureless Western lady wears a sleeveless dress with a sunhat, her companion is draped in his hunting garb while his counterpart is dressed in the majestic garb of a Maharaja. The tiger is placed most prominently in the center, reminiscent of photographs of British royalty photographed aside dead tiger carcasses from the same period. The Shikars, the traditional Indian hunters turned guide, is seen atop the elephant almost blending with the background. 

Husain’s recall of the Raj is intensely personal but also fiercely political, a painter for the people, he immortalized each period of Indian history in his canvases, celebrating and informing his audience of the amalgamation of periods that gave rise to the composite culture of the present. By choosing to cast his eyes back to this particular period, he produced powerful works charge with nationalism and humor that are global in its form yet deeply Indian in its content.

Auction Catalogue – South Asian Art – ‘Modern and Contemporary’ – September 24 – 28, 2020

Our upcoming auction presents works by leading modernists and contemporary artists from South Asia such as M. F. Husain, F. N. Souza, Ram Kumar from The Progressive Artists’ Group alongside Jogen Chowdhury, Sohan Qadri, Ganesh Pyne, Zarina Hashmi, and G.R. Santosh. The sale has signature subject works of Akbar Padamsee, Jamil Naqsh, and S.H. Raza, as well as a suite of watercolor works by Sakti Burman. Two sculptures by Himmat Shah and one by Akbar Padamsee are also part of this sale catalogue.

Auction Catalogue – South Asian Art – ‘Modern and Contemporary’ – September 24 – 28, 2020