ALIVE: EVENING SALE OF MODERN AND CONTEMPORARY ART (17 SEPTEMBER 2020)

ALIVE

17 SEPTEMBER 2020

EVENING SALE OF MODERN AND CONTEMPORARY ART

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ALIVE

17 SEPTEMBER 2020

EVENING SALE OF MODERN AND CONTEMPORARY ART

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CONTENTS

6 SALES AND ENQUIRIES
8 A 20‒YEAR JOURNEY
12 THE AUCTION CATALOGUE
186 HIGHLIGHTS 2000 ‒ 2020
210 FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
214 CONDITIONS FOR SALE
221 ABSENTEE/PROXY BID FORM
223 INDEX

Cover Back cover Inside front cover Inside back cover Facing page
Lot 13 Lot 36 Lot 30 Lot 14‒16 Lot 57

OUR TEAM

DINESH VAZIRANI MINAL VAZIRANI PUNYA NAGPAL ABHA HOUSEGO ANU NANAVATI

CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER PRESIDENT SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT VICE PRESIDENT
AND CO‒FOUNDER AND CO‒FOUNDER INTERNATIONAL, LONDON INTERNATIONAL, NEW YORK

CLIENT RELATIONS

DHANASHREE SHAHEEN VIRANI AMIT KAPOOR ADITI PARAB AASHISH DUBEY DEEPIKA SHAH DARPANA CAPOOR
WAIKAR
ASSOCIATE VICE PRESIDENT ASSOCIATE VICE PRESIDENT MANAGER SENIOR MANAGER SENIOR MANAGER SENIOR MANAGER
ASSOCIATE VICE CLIENT RELATIONS JEWELLERY JEWELLERY & COLLECTIBLES CLIENT RELATIONS CLIENT RELATIONS CLIENT RELATIONS
PRESIDENT
CLIENT RELATIONS EDITORIAL AND DESIGN

JOE CYRIL RAMONA D’MELLO MAIA JASUBHOY ALKA SAMANT JATIN LAD EESHA PATKAR KRITI BAJAJ

BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT MANAGER MANAGER VICE PRESIDENT DESIGN SENIOR DESIGNER EDITORIAL MANAGER EDITORIAL MANAGER
DIGITAL MARKETING
CLIENT RELATIONS, LONDON

OPERATIONS AND FINANCE

MANU CHANDRA VINAY BHATE YASH GADHIYA NARSINGRAO

HEAD OF OPERATIONS VICE PRESIDENT HEAD OF TECHNOLOGY LEAD SOFTWARE ENGINEER
FINANCE AND PRODUCT TECHNOLOGY

HARESH JIANDANI ANJALI GHATGE CHANDRA POOJARI GAURAV YADAV

ASSOCIATE VICE PRESIDENT MANAGER SENIOR MANAGER MANAGER
LOGISTICS FINANCE LOGISTICS LOGISTICS

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LIVE AUCTION NEW DELHI LONDON
1 – 17 September 2020 1 – 17 September 2020
Thursday, 17 September 2020 11 am – 5 pm, Monday to Saturday 11 am – 6 pm, Monday to Friday
Registration: 6.30 pm (By prior appointment only) (By prior appointment only)
Auction: 7.30 pm
VENUE VENUE
VENUE Saffronart, The Oberoi 73 New Bond Street
Dr. Zakir Hussain Marg 1st Floor
Saffronart, Industry Manor New Delhi 110003 London, W1S 1RS
Appasaheb Marathe Marg
Prabhadevi, Mumbai 400025

VIEWINGS

MUMBAI
1 – 16 September 2020
11 am – 5 pm, Monday to Saturday
(By prior appointment only)

VENUE
Saffronart, Industry Manor
Appasaheb Marathe Marg
Prabhadevi, Mumbai 400025

AUCTIONEERS

DINESH VAZIRANI
PUNYA NAGPAL

SALES TEAM AND AUCTION ENQUIRIES

Mumbai Contact: Punya Nagpal, Dhanashree Waikar, Shaheen Virani, Aashish Dubey or Deepika Shah
Email: [email protected] | Contact: +91 22 68554100 / +91 78382 91339

New Delhi Contact: Amit Kapoor or Darpana Capoor | Email: [email protected] | Contact: +91 11 24369415
USA Contact: Anu Nanavati | Email: [email protected] | Tel: +1 212 627 5006
UK Contact: Abha Housego or Maia Jasubhoy | Email: [email protected] | Tel: +44 20 7409 7974

ADDRESSES

India Mumbai: Industry Manor, 3rd Floor, Appasaheb Marathe Marg, Prabhadevi, Mumbai 400025
New Delhi: The Oberoi, Dr. Zakir Hussain Marg, New Delhi 110003

USA The Fuller Building, 595 Madison Avenue, Suite 1207, New York, NY 10022
UK 73 New Bond Street, 1st Floor, London, W1S 1RS

7

A 20‒YEAR JOURNEY

If you are now nearing 50 years old, you were half your age when the first e‒commerce
transaction took place in the August of 1994. A young entrepreneur sold a CD of the
musician Sting’s album to a friend, who paid for it with a credit card and the entire
transaction was encrypted. Who could have predicted that USD 12.48 (plus shipping, of
course) would cascade into today's e‒commerce market, which, despite — or perhaps due
to — the global pandemic, is soon expected to cross USD 4 trillion.

By 1994, we had both completed degrees in engineering and art, were dating each other,
and looking towards careers in management. Although it was not intentional, we were
clearly converging on the same path and found that we shared a common vision between
us — one that revolved around art. It was around this time that an unforeseen business
school project took our lives in a very different direction. We could not have imagined then
that exactly 25 years later, we would be celebrating the 20th anniversary of this company
that we had started in order to offer collectors access to Indian art in a way that had never
been done before — entirely online.

In April 2000, we went live with Saffronart. At the time, it was the first company that
allowed users to search for, learn about, and buy fine art, with everything they needed at
their fingertips. It took a year of very little sleep, a willing suspension of disbelief, and rewiring
our online auctions to include anyone in the world, at any time of the day. It was that first
auction which closed in December 2000 that made us realise that drawing people together
online created a democratised access to art which was unprecedented. With transparent
pricing, a seamless interface, and immediate results, collectors of art found themselves with
a great deal of information, and therefore greater confidence in this fledgling Indian art
auction market — which was then valued globally at only about USD 3 million.

In 2020, as we look back, it has been an incredible journey from that small market to the
present day, where a single painting of a modern master is now priced at over USD 3
million, such as the work on the cover of this catalogue. We have been through highs and

lows in the market, alongside the growth of Saffronart as an organisation and a fantastic
team that has been around since the beginning. It is a rare thing to have a company where
virtually every member of the team lives and breathes the journey through a common
vision, as we do. This is a team that stood up when it mattered. It took us over 13 years to
reach our first 100 auctions, almost four years to reach our second 100, and only two years
to reach this 300th auction. This is not road laden with milestones, but rather moments of
building up South Asian art together, both within the subcontinent as well as on a global
platform.

Through these years, the clients, gallerists, artists, curators, writers — all those who have
formed not just the ecosystem of Indian art, but its very foundation, have been a part of
our shared history, and all of this would have been simply impossible without their support
and contribution. It is this spirit of working together that has allowed the Saffronart team
to focus on where we started — online auctions and a strong virtual connect with our
clients globally. It has allowed us to navigate the unimaginable disruption of 2020 through
a series of online auctions, both with and without reserve prices; expand the offering of
collectible categories; create conversations around aesthetics; and relaunch our partner
gallery program — all of which has brought over four times as much art to over twice the
number of people since the same time last year.

As we look back at Saffronart’s pioneering efforts and move forward into uncharted
waters, perhaps 2020 has refocused our vision (pun intended). It is this collective vision,
collaborative effort and coming together of not only the Saffronart team, but also the art
community at large that we celebrate. Perhaps Edward Hopper said it best: “If I could say
it in words, there would be no reason to paint.” This catalogue, and the 20‒year timeline
of memorable photographs in the end, are reminders of our shared past and the collective
future that we join you in creating.

With gratitude,
MINAL AND DINESH VAZIRANI



The following lots 1 ‒ 34 are located in India and may only
be bid upon in INR currency. For further details, please refer

to the Conditions of Sale at the end of the catalogue.

1

JAMINI ROY (1887‒1972)

Untitled (Flight into Egypt)

Signed in Bengali (lower right)
Tempera on cardboard
9.25 x 11.75 in (23.7 x 30 cm)

Rs 4,00,000 ‒ 6,00,000
$5,410 ‒ 8,110

NON‒EXPORTABLE NATIONAL ART TREASURE

PROVENANCE
Acquired directly from the artist by J S Turner, India, circa
1947‒1958. Turner served as a professor and the head of the
Department of English, University of Dhaka from 1954‒1958.
Thence by descent
Private Collection, UK
Private Collection, New Delhi

12

2

F N SOUZA (1924‒2002)

Untitled
Signed and dated ‘Souza 59’ (lower centre)
1959
Pen and ink on paper
8 x 12.5 in (20.5 x 32 cm)
Rs 5,00,000 ‒ 7,00,000
$6,760 ‒ 9,460
PROVENANCE
Private European Collection
Bonhams, London, 21 May 2007, lot 79
Private Collection, Mumbai
Saffronart, New Delhi, 8 September 2016, lot 38

13

3

F N SOUZA (1924‒2002)

Untitled
Signed and dated ‘Souza 56’ (upper left)
1956
Watercolour and ink on paper
7.75 x 9.5 in (19.5 x 24 cm)
Rs 6,00,000 ‒ 8,00,000
$8,110 ‒ 10,815
PROVENANCE
Private Collection, UK
Bonhams, London, 7 June 2012, lot 4
Private Collection, New Delhi

14

4 Amarnath Sehgal was a renowned artist, poet and
educator whose art transcended any particular
AMARNATH SEHGAL (1922‒2007) style or medium. His works sought to explore
the power of the subconscious and the human
Untitled experience. "Sehgal observes beauty, wherever it
be, regardless of time, scale or culture… [his works]
Signed, dated and inscribed ‘4/6/ Sehgal/ ‘60’ (on the reverse) effectively communicate his thoughts and feelings,
1960 and serve as a bridge between the artist and his
Bronze and marble audience. Sehgal's specific aesthetic purpose may
Height: 10.75 in (27 cm) be described as the intent to inform and persuade,
Width: 4 in (10 cm) to express through artefacts the ideas and feelings
Depth: 3.25 in (8 cm) that are important to humanity." (Pran Nath Mago,
"Some Consequential Contemporary Artists in
Rs 6,00,000 ‒ 8,00,000 India," Contemporary Art in India: A Perspective,
$8,110 ‒ 10,815 New Delhi: National Book Trust, 2001, pp. 185‒186)
The present lot is articulated with the artist’s
Fourth from a limited edition of six characteristic economy, and the graceful figure
echoes Sehgal’s desire for rhythmic continuity in
PROVENANCE his work.
Acquired directly from the artist, 1978
Private Collection, UK 15
Acquired from the above

5

PRODOSH DAS
GUPTA (1912‒1991)

Untitled (Three Graces)
Inscribed, signed and dated ‘2/5 P. Das
Gupta 1974’ (at the bottom)
1974
Bronze
Height: 16.75 in (42.5 cm)
Width: 6.75 in (17 cm)
Depth: 7.25 in (18.5 cm)
Rs 6,00,000 ‒ 8,00,000
$8,110 ‒ 10,815
Second from a limited edition of five
PROVENANCE
Acquired in Bombay, 1978
Property from a Private Collection, Florida
Sotheby’s, New York, 18 March 2019, lot 21
Private Collection, New Delhi

Prodosh Das Gupta’s sculptures range from symmetrical, figurative works to fluid, freely rendered structures, as seen
in the present lot. Educated in India and abroad, Das Gupta was able to merge Western artistic ideals with Indian
sculptural traditions to create his own idiom. His style was reflective of his desire to create a sculpture that balanced
form and content whilst expressing contemporary ideals and energy. Das Gupta’s commitment to modernity made
him instrumental in the world of Indian sculpture. In the present lot, he shapes the medium of bronze in smooth,
harmonious lines, demonstrating his superlative ability as a sculptor. Here, the Greek mythological figures of the Three
Graces, daughters of Zeus and Hera, face inwards, evoking sentiments of contemplation and beauty.

16

6

M F HUSAIN (1913‒2011)

Untitled

Painted wood pasted on mountboard
Height: 9 in (22.7 cm)
Board size: 12.5 x 15.5 in (31.8 x 39.6 cm)

Rs 5,00,000 ‒ 7,00,000
$6,760 ‒ 9,460

PROVENANCE
Private Collection, UK
Acquired from the above

7

M F HUSAIN (1913‒2011)

Untitled (Man in Turban)
Signed ‘Husain’ (upper left)
Circa 1950s
Mixed media on paper
10 x 7 in (25.2 x 17.5 cm)
Rs 10,00,000 ‒ 15,00,000
$13,515 ‒ 20,275

PROVENANCE
Acquired from Galerie Palette, Zürich, circa 1950s
Private Collection, Switzerland
Private Collection, New Delhi

EXHIBITED
Maqbool Fida Husain, Zürich: Galerie Palette, 1956

“We went back to our roots. We discarded all outside influences.
We painted contemporary things but put in our context and in
our culture. There were social and political influences too, but
everything revolved around pure aesthetics.” – M F HUSAIN

The present lot is an early portrait by M F Husain, and provides a rare glimpse into the artist’s evolving style during
this period. In the late 1940s, Husain became a member of the Progressive Artists’ Group which sought to break away
from the academic schools of art prevalent in India at the time. In 1948, he visited an exhibition at the Rashtrapati
Bhavan in New Delhi, which marked a turning point for the artist – his forms and figurative works would henceforth
be increasingly influenced by classical Indian art and sculpture.

In 1951, Emanuel Schlesinger wrote about this transformation in the Bombay Art Society exhibition catalogue.
“Husain’s style underwent considerable changes in the course of only three years’ time. Expressiveness through flat
colour applied on large surfaces marks the first stage. Powerful figure work in strong colours, symbolic in conception
and intention, aimed at expression of social consciousness are characteristic of the second phase. More recently, a
change of patterned, mosaic‒like, decorative and symbolic work has taken place, sometimes reminiscent of Jamini
Roy and folk art.” (Quoted in Yashodhara Dalmia, "A Metaphor for Modernity," The Making of Modern Indian Art:
The Progressives, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2001, p. 103) 

In this formative period, Husain travelled to China and Europe, exhibited at the Venice Biennale, and had his first
international solo shows in Zürich, as well as Prague and Frankfurt. In 1955, he won a national award from the Lalit
Kala Akademi, which would be followed by honours such as the International Biennale Award in Tokyo (1959) and
a Padma Shri in the following decade, firmly establishing Husain as a leading Indian modernist and a global artist.

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8

B PRABHA (1933‒2001)

Untitled
Signed and dated ‘b.prabha/ 1967’ (lower left)
1967
Oil on canvas
40.75 x 16 in (103.8 x 40.7 cm)
Rs 6,00,000 ‒ 8,00,000
$8,110 ‒ 10,815
PROVENANCE
Acquired from Pundole Art Gallery by Mrs. Jane
Proctor and her husband in Mumbai, circa 1960s.
During this time, the couple lived in India and Mr.
Proctor managed business for Otis Elevators.
Collection of Jane Proctor, Denver
Private Collection, New Delhi

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9

RAM KUMAR (1924‒2018)

Untitled (Benares)

Signed, inscribed and dated in Devnagari (lower left)
1982
Ink wash on paper pasted on mountboard
15 x 22.5 in (38 x 56.9 cm)

Rs 6,00,000 ‒ 8,00,000
$8,110 ‒ 10,815

PROVENANCE
Formerly from the Collection of Bal Chhabda
Thence by descent
Private Collection, New Delhi

21



“Black is the most mysterious of all colours. Renoir found it
impossible and said a spot of black was like a hole in the painting.
I cannot agree: colour is now disturbing in a bad way.”  F N SOUZA, 1966

The present lot is part of a series of ‘black on black’ works that Souza executed in the mid‒1960s, painted exclusively
in the thick black impasto usually reserved for his bold lines. A radical, but brief departure from his oeuvre at the
time, this series represents the artist’s technical brilliance as a draughtsman, as well as his constant desire to push the
boundaries of his practice. In these paintings, “The substance is black, not the smooth black of pure sensation but a
very palpable black, its solidity created by thick brush strokes in different directions and by a considerable range of
tones according to the paint’s direction in relation to the light.” (Dennis Duerden, “F N Souza,” Arts Review, London,
14 May 1966, p. 215)

PROPERTY OF A DISTINGUISHED GENTLEMAN, MUMBAI Cover of Black Art and Other Paintings,
London: Grosvenor Gallery, 1966
10

F N SOUZA (1924‒2002)

Nude with Wool

Signed and dated ‘SOUZA/ 1965’ (upper left); inscribed
and dated ‘F.N. SOUZA/ 1965’ (on the reverse)
1965
Oil and wool on board
47.5 x 23.5 in (120.7 x 59.7 cm)

Rs 40,00,000 ‒ 60,00,000
$54,055 ‒ 81,085

PROVENANCE
Formerly from the Estate of F N Souza
Private Collection, UK
Acquired from the above

PUBLISHED
Aziz Kurtha, Francis Newton Souza: Bridging Western and
Indian Modern Art, Ahmedabad: Mapin Publishing Pvt Ltd,
2006, p. 176

It is likely that in pushing his artistic boundaries and challenging traditional notions of colour and painting, Souza’s
‘black on black’ paintings were influenced by the Pinturas Negras series of Spanish artist Francisco de Goya, whose
work he encountered at the National Gallery in London and admired greatly, and the Blue period paintings of
Pablo Picasso, an artist to whom he was often compared. This series perhaps also drew from the experimental
monochromatic paintings of conceptual artist Yves Klein—who was represented by some of the same galleries as
Souza in London and Paris—and his exhibition Propositions Monochromes (1957) and Le Vide (1958). “You have to
admire Souza's courage. He comes from India into a post war Britain and paints black on black. To paint without
colour: was he brave or crazy a genius or a fool? Or both? Souza was like a tightrope walker teetering between
madness and inspiration. The Black on Blacks represent the moment when you take your breath and wonder when
the man will plunge. This work is not for the faint of heart. There is no safety net. It’s scary stuff.” (Kito de Boer
quoted in Zehra Jumabhoy, F N Souza: Black on Black, London: Grosvenor Gallery, 2013, p. 37)

According to Zehra Jumabhoy, this series was also perhaps motivated by Souza’s personal quest to address politics
of race and identity. They seemed to be “on the cusp of a dialogue about racial exclusion… After all, 1960s Britain
was a dark place for most painters… If his earlier and later paintings were characterised by thick black lines, they also
revelled in colour: acid yellows, harsh blues, bloody reds. By the last 1950s, and early ’60s, however, Souza’s images
were swamped by sinister shades… Perhaps too, Souza’s own circumstances as a ‘man of colour,’ instigated him to
tune into an even gloomier facet of Post‒War Britain: discrimination.” (Jumabhoy, pp. 9‒10)

25

11

M SIVANESAN (1940‒2015)

Untitled
Signed and dated ‘M.SIVANESAN/ 69’ (lower left)
1969
Oil on canvas
72.5 x 51.5 in (184 x 130.8 cm)
Rs 6,00,000 ‒ 8,00,000
$8,110 ‒ 10,815

PROVENANCE
Acquired directly from the artist

26

12

K H ARA (1914‒1985)

Untitled
Signed ‘ARA’ (lower left)
Gouache on paper
24 x 26.75 in (61 x 68 cm)
Rs 6,00,000 ‒ 8,00,000
$8,110 ‒ 10,815
PROVENANCE
Private Collection, Massachusetts, USA
Private Collection, UK
Acquired from the above

27

V S Gaitonde
Reproduced from a Progressive Artists' Group exhibition catalogue, 1949

“I suddenly saw no reason to paint from any kind of concept at
all. There came an amazing sense of liberation, and that is where
my painting began to flow from.”  V S GAITONDE

LIVING WITH SOMETHING BEAUTIFUL

INTERVIEW WITH COLLECTOR SABIRA MERCHANT

“The decision to buy this green [Gaitonde] work was Sabira Merchant poses in front of her portrait by Desmond Groves,
instantaneous. I just loved it so much, the construction circa 1990s
and the colours of the painting, and I remember telling
Kali Pundole at the time that it was very hard for us to Newspaper advertisements of Studio 29, whose logo she designed, and the
afford it. Knowing me, he said ‘No, I want you to have only play in which Merchant acted alongside Naseeruddin Shah
this painting and enjoy it, and you can pay me whenever
you want,’ and so it was paid for in installments.” Sabira
Merchant’s unwavering recollection of this moment
nearly 45 years ago reflects not only her relationship with
art, but also her independent spirit of making things
happen even if they didn’t seem likely or conventional.

With a rich career that includes work in theatre, radio
and television, Merchant credits her love for the arts to
her architect father and painter mother, both of whom
were also poets, “so the love of art just ran through
me.” She used to paint, experimenting with oil and
charcoal, and she studied art in school and college. At
the University of Neuchâtel in Switzerland, she took a
class where students had to regularly study and draw a
nude life model. “I was a young girl, and I remember I
was so nervous I could hardly put my pencil onto the
paper and draw her. Of course, later on we got used to
it.” In the 1970s, when the disco revolution was yet to
take hold in India, she converted a barber’s shop at 29
Marine Drive into one of the most successful nightclubs
in Bombay. Known as Studio 29, it doubled up during
the day as a space for shows, plays and lectures, and was
“an area that gave itself over totally to entertainment of
any and every kind.”

In the early 1960s, when Merchant was married and
a young mother of three, her love for theatre and art
began to take centre stage. Her husband was confused
at her sudden acting ambitions (“Why don’t you play
bridge instead?”) but supported her when he realised
that she was determined. She was cast in her first play,
The Word, by Alyque and Pearl Padamsee, the “life‒
blood” of theatre, and received positive responses to
her debut. It was also around this time that Merchant

Sabira Merchant in Pearl Padamsee's The Serpent at Scots' Kirk church, Colaba Merchant also did a brief shoot with Husain for
Doordarshan, part of which was filmed in her home. One
bought her first work of art, a “very unusual” piece by frame that stayed in her mind involved the artist seated
an artist named Mahesh Uppal. Comprising two copper under his painting – a rare “white on white horses” work
and brass coins – replicas from the Gupta and Mughal which she owned, and designed her living room around
periods respectively – embedded in a wooden board, – holding his book titled Husain. “You could see the
“it had beautiful colourings of ochre and orange around Husain book, you could see Husain holding it and you
it and the look of the piece just appealed to me so could see his painting above. It was a really classical shot.”
much.” In the late 1960s and early 1970s, she went on She was close to the prolific Laxman Shrestha, who took
to acquire works by K H Ara, Shanti Dave, M F Husain up her idea of creating a triptych which she later bought
and V S Gaitonde, developing a preference for abstract in staggered payments; and a sculpture by Jehangir Jani
modern works. She was also partial to sculptures, and – “a beautiful statue with rivets on it” – was actually
Adi Davierwalla’s large steel work, The Headless Warrior, inspired by a photograph in her home, a present from
is suspended between the two floors of her home. her husband on their 25th anniversary.
Merchant’s journey as a collector was straightforward,
Merchant counted many of these artists among even serendipitous, guided throughout by her aesthetic
her friends, with a relationship of support that went vision. “Nobody thought that art was going to be worth
both ways; “they came to the theatre, I went to their that much. You liked something, you liked the person,
exhibitions.” Many were introduced through mutual you liked his eccentricities… We never thought we were
friends, such as M F Husain and Jehangir Sabavala – collecting. We just loved to look at it, and so we bought
who would later persuade her to buy his beautiful work, it. Just to see and admire and live with something
The Tenebrous Cloud, before he left for an exhibition in beautiful.”
Scotland. These connections grew wider and deeper;
her son went to preschool with Sabavala’s daughter, and Sabira Merchant’s art collection includes a rare white M F Husain painting,
Husain’s “inseparable” best friend Bal Chhabda lived in which takes pride of place in her home in Mumbai
Merchant’s building. She recalled numerous occasions
when Husain would pull up in a taxi to visit him, sans
shoes and cash, and encountering her in the lobby, left
her to settle the fare. “He was a complete eccentric,
artistic, focused‒on‒his‒art human being.” 

PROPERTY OF SABIRA MERCHANT
13

V S GAITONDE (1924‒2001)

Untitled
Signed and dated in Devnagari, signed and dated again
‘V.S. GAITONDE ‒ 1974’ (on the reverse)
1974
Oil on canvas
70 x 40 in ( 178 x 101.5 cm )
Rs 25,00,00,000 ‒ 35,00,00,000
$3,378,380 ‒ 4,729,730
This work will be published in Vasudeo Santu Gaitonde:
Sonata of Light, researched by Bodhana Arts and Research
Foundation, Mumbai (forthcoming)
PROVENANCE
Acquired from Pundole Art Gallery, Bombay, 1975

Reverse of the painting
32

33

Vasudeo Gaitonde
Image Courtesy of Kishori Das
Published in Vasudeo Santu Gaitonde: Sonata of Solitude, Mumbai: Bodhana Arts and Research Foundation, 2016

34

V S GAITONDE

(1924‒2001)

V S Gaitonde is renowned for his precise, deliberate technique, and much of
his work is an extension of his independent‒minded and private nature. He
once said, “I could never stop painting, but even if I do stop, I will continue
to talk about it. Painting and Gaitonde are synonymous.” (Artist quoted in
Sandhini Poddar, V S Gaitonde: Painting as Process, Painting as Life, New York:
The Solomon R Guggenheim Museum, 2014, p. 31)
Over the years, the artist’s style transitioned and consolidated, but retained an
unwavering consistency and quality. By the 1970s, when the present lot was
painted, Gaitonde favoured the vertical format canvas upon which colours
met textures in a seamless symphony, each distinct from the rest. Preferring
the term “non‒objective” rather than “abstract” to describe his work, the
artist aspired to perfection, and this mastery of his art led him to become
one of India’s foremost modern painters. Inspired in various stages of his
career by Basohli and Pahari miniatures, artists such as Paul Klee, and Zen
Buddhism, he was “a 20th century Indian modernist who looked westward,
eastward, homeward and inward to create an intensely personalized version
of transculturalism, one that has given him mythic stature in his own country
and pushed him to the top of the auction charts.” (Holland Cotter, “An Indian
Modernist With a Global Gaze,” The New York Times, 1 January 2015, online) 

35

NOT OF THIS WORLD  Untitled, 1952
Jehangir Nicholson Collection
Gaitonde studied at the renowned Sir J J School of Art in Bombay, Image reproduced from Kamini Sawhney, Dadiba Pundole
graduating successfully in 1948 and winning a fellowship for a further and Dnyaneshwar Nadkarni, V S Gaitonde: The Silent
two years. It was a pivotal time in history – India was on the cusp Observer, Mumbai: Jehangir Nicholson Art Foundation,
of independence, and this was reflected in art, with most artists in 2019, p. 14
Bombay rejecting the pedagogical British style and seeking a new
vocabulary. A contemporary of the Progressive Artists’ Group, Untitled, 1963
Gaitonde was only loosely associated with them, and he exhibited Saffronart, New Delhi, 21 September 2017, lot 13
in the first Bombay Group show. However, in his work, he charted
his own course, “consciously choosing not to pay banal homage to
the social and political causes of the time. The social relevance of art
was of no particular interest to him, Gaitonde’s kingdom was not
of this world. Abstraction, with its emphasis on the autonomy of
the aesthetic, liberated him from depicting matters temporal, and
he was highly conscious of its emancipatory potential. He chose
to focus instead on light and line, texture and tactility, opacity and
translucence and on the evocative possibilities of colour.” (Meera
Menezes, Vasudeo Santu Gaitonde: Sonata of Solitude, Mumbai:
Bodhana Arts and Research Foundation, 2016, p. 27)

By the late 1950s, Gaitonde had moved beyond the figurative genre
popular at the time, favouring “geometrically rigid” compositions
with lines, planes of colour and an often monochromatic palette, with
a “subtle balancing of the image on canvas as if it were undulating on
water and gradually surfacing in the light...” (Dnyaneshwar Nadkarni,
Gaitonde, Lalit Kala Akademi, New Delhi, 1983) By 1959, he had
moved exclusively to oil as a medium, applied with a roller and
palette knife to layer, erase and add shapes and textures. Critic Sham
Lal once said, “Even in Gaitonde’s abstract (sic) canvases, don’t the
large red or mauve or blue surfaces remind us in some vague way
of the immensity of outer space, and the circles and squares which
break up this surface of strange planets?” (Quoted in Nadkarni)

TAKING IT SLOW 

In the 1960s, Gaitonde’s interest in Zen Buddhism – which began
in the previous decade – began to deepen. Influenced by the
philosophical and spiritual teachings of J Krishnamurti and Ramana
Maharshi, this preoccupation was the stepping‒stone for Gaitonde’s
shift towards non‒objectivism. “A turning point in his life came after
his encounter with Zen Buddhism through the book Zen in the
Art of Archery. His engagement with Zen also gave him a deeper

understanding of nature and his early forays into the realm of Untitled, 1974
abstraction were evocative of both sea and landscape.” (Menezes, Private Collection, New Delhi
p. 27) Calligraphic, hieroglyphic forms also began to appear in his V S Gaitonde: Works from Private Collections,
paintings, punctuating the largely monochromatic canvases and New Delhi: Saffronart, 21 January – 4 February
dramatising the play of light and colour. Additionally, in 1964, 2011
the artist was introduced to Abstract Expressionist artists such as
Rothko while on a John D Rockefeller III fellowship in New York. The Untitled, 1977
exposure to these new spiritual and artistic ways of thinking would Collection of Jehangir Nicholson
find expression in Gaitonde’s work in a unique way. Image reproduced from Dnyaneshwar Nadkarni,
Gaitonde, Lalit Kala Akademi, New Delhi, 1983, pl. 6
Gaitonde showed tremendous control over the canvas. Each painting
emerged out of a process of deep and lengthy contemplation, and
from the application of colour to the manner in which the forms
emerged, every element was deliberate and balanced. He made only
a handful of paintings in a year, spending months perfecting a single
canvas, in reverence to and guided by the creative process. 

From 1968 onwards, Gaitonde shifted from horizontal to vertical
canvases, which he preferred almost exclusively through the rest of
his career. During this period of transition, he created a series of works
between 1968 and 1969 with hues similar to the present lot, which
he later revisited but never identically repeated. In 1972, Gaitonde
received the prestigious Padma Shri award from the Government of
India in recognition of his contribution to and expertise in painting. 

Around this time, he began experimenting with newspaper and
magazine cut‒outs, using a lengthy “lift‒off” process to create such
works, in which abstract shapes appear to linger on the surface.
“The ensuing abstract forms hover across the surface, creating
silhouetted shapes and geometries. In a work from 1973, he folded
the newspapers into thin slivers in order to stencil horizontal,
diagonal and vertical bands toward an overall symphonic field of
quiet, abstracted geometry. These paintings have a gravity‒defying
weightlessness and yet there is a real sense of physicality and
presence to them.” (Poddar, p. 30)

Gaitonde believed that his study of and engagement with Zen, as
manifested in his paintings, distinguished them from those of his
contemporaries and artistic movements prevalent at the time. They
arose from a process of deep introspection and a harmony of form,
colour, and thought; painting them was akin to a philosophical
exercise rooted in quiet transformation. “The painter starts by
absorbing these silences. You are not partial in the sense that no one
part of you is working there. Your entire being is. Your entire being
is working together with the brush, the painting knife, the canvas
to absorb that silence and create.” (Artist quoted in Poddar, p. 39)

"The canvas looks like an ocean; to carry the simile further, it is as if
we are looking down on the mildly lapping waters of the sea near
a pier and, in the half light, gazing at things surfacing or floating in
the water... Many of Gaitonde's canvases possess that mystery, that
tension between a translucent surface, and the motifs which lurk on
the same canvas but from a distance."  DNYANESHWAR NADKARNI

V S Gaitonde at his solo exhibition at the Taj Art Gallery, Bombay. Image copyright: Installation view of V S Gaitonde: Works from Private Collections, New Delhi:
Sharon Lowen. Reproduced from Jesal Thacker and Meera Menezes, Vasudeo Santu Saffronart, 21 January ‒ 4 February 2011
Gaitonde: Sonata of Solitude, Mumbai: Bodhana Arts and Research Foundation,
2016, p. 171

38

FORM AND FEELING  Untitled, 1981
Collection: Pundole Art Gallery
In 1972, Gaitonde permanently moved from Mumbai to Delhi, leaving Image reproduced from Nadkarni, pl. 2
the buzzing city and its sea and rains behind forever. Ram Kumar
said, “When he came from Bombay to Delhi he was always missing Untitled, 1982
the sea, the Bombay way of life.” (Quoted in Menezes, p. 165) Works Modern Indian Art, presented by Saffronart
such as the luminescent present lot recall the powerful element of and Pundole Art Gallery at New York:
water that Gaitonde associated with the place he had called home Metropolitan Pavilion, 12 – 16 May 2001
for much of his life. According to Richard Bartholomew, “Nature as
the phenomenal environment – the mountains, the sea, mist, cloud,
sunshine and the perspectives of the landscape, when recalled as
experience, gets reflected in forms of feeling… In Gaitonde’s work... the
theme of the sea, the surf, the play of light, and the sea’s mystique itself
are orchestrated as music within the mind and expressed as a score
or an organic fabric, a fine lace‒work of melodic motifs.” (Quoted in
Poddar, p. 31)

Here, Gaitonde continues to draw from calligraphy to create
enigmatic forms and motifs that “appear to float and seek anchor...”
– indecipherable, lurking just beneath the surface and beyond the
reaches of consciousness. (Nadkarni) Progressing vertically across
the canvas, the merging of symbols, textures and colours is almost
meditative, reflecting the nature and process of its creator. As fellow
artist Krishen Khanna said, “There is a strong correlation I see between
the way Gaitonde thought, the way he lived, and the way he painted.”
(Poddar, p. 28) Gaitonde’s ethereal canvases, including the present
lot, encapsulated emotion through the medium of paint, and in their
quiet intrigue and quest for perfection, they were an extension of the
master artist himself.

Untitled, 1982 Untitled, 1973 Untitled, 1985
Saffronart, New Delhi, Saffronart, Mumbai, Collection: Associate Capsules Group, Mumbai
21 September 2019, lot 12 26 March 2019, lot 37 V S Gaitonde: Works from Private Collections, New
Sold for Rs 26.88 crores ($3.79 million) Sold for Rs 25.24 crores ($3.7 million) Delhi: Saffronart, 21 January – 4 February 2011

39

Autographed photograph of Amrita Sher‒Gil
Saffronart, Mumbai, 14 December 2015, lot 45

“Thousands of lovely flowers grow next to the
Crystal waters of the Tisza
But more beautiful than all the many flowers is a rosy
Cheeked Hungarian girl, with her rosy cheeked face…”

 AMRITA SHER‒GIL, “THE HUNGARIAN GIRL,” 1920‒24

Amrita Sher‒Gil is considered one of India’s most significant artists of the 20th century, and her early
work provides insights into her imagination and skill as a draughtsman and painter. Sher‒Gil started
drawing and painting by the age of six, when residing in the Hungarian town of Dunaharaszti, she
had begun, according to her mother, “illustrating little stories I used to tell or Hungarian folk‒songs
of which she was very fond. Later on she would compose her own fairy stories, illustrating them
with coloured crayons.” (Marie Antoinette quoted in Yashodhara Dalmia, Amrita Sher‒Gil: A Life,
New Delhi: Penguin, 2006, p. 14)

41

14

AMRITA SHER‒GIL (1913‒1941)

A White Marble Fall
Inscribed ‘Amrita Shergil/ at the age of 10. Simla 1923’
(lower left); inscribed in Hungarian and dated ‘4.6.1923’
(on the reverse)
1923
Watercolour and graphite on paper
10.5 x 7 in (26.5 x 18 cm)
Rs 20,00,000 ‒ 30,00,000
$27,030 ‒ 40,545
NON‒EXPORTABLE NATIONAL ART TREASURE
PROVENANCE
Acquired directly from the artist’s family
PUBLISHED
Vivan Sundaram ed., Amrita Sher‒Gil: A Self‒Portrait in Letters
& Writings, Volume 1, New Delhi: Tulika Books, 2010, p. 15
(illustrated)

The present lot is a soft watercolour, portraying two women enjoying the cool, foamy water – white as marble, as
indicated in the Hungarian inscription – dressed in bright summer dresses with flowers in their hair. This work was
painted by Sher‒Gil in Simla in 1923, when she was just ten years old. It was also around this time that she won her first
prize for art – a fifty rupee cash award – for painting her first responses to cinema. Sher‒Gil’s fondness for portraying
female figures and relationships, seen in her early works, would remain with her throughout her career, manifesting in
later oil paintings which often depicted women and were “handled with great sensitivity and not with superficial pity or
condescension.” (Dalmia, p. 20)

Reverse of the painting

42

43

Reverse of the painting

15

AMRITA SHER‒GIL

(1913‒1941)
Untitled
Graphite, pen and ink on paper
9.75 x 6.5 in (24.6 x 16.8 cm)
Rs 18,00,000 ‒ 24,00,000
$24,325 ‒ 32,435
NON‒EXPORTABLE
NATIONAL ART TREASURE
This is a double‒sided work
PROVENANCE
Acquired directly from the artist’s family
Private Collection, Mumbai
PUBLISHED
Vivan Sundaram ed., Amrita Sher‒Gil: A
Self‒Portrait in Letters & Writings, Volume
1, New Delhi: Tulika Books, 2010, p. 46
(illustrated)

front

Sher‒Gil's family relocated to Simla from Hungary in the 1920s, where the artist and her sister Indira began to take
lessons in English and Western classical music. She was prolific in filling her diaries and sketchbooks with drawings and
watercolours, whose themes were inspired by Hungarian and German folk tales that she grew up listening to, as well as
films, literature and cultural influences that she was surrounded by at the time. Even from an early age, Sher‒Gil’s works
displayed a maturity and diversity, as she carefully depicted a range of expressions, emotions, and sartorial details in
her chosen characters. The present lot portrays several iterations of female portraits with varying hairstyles, angles and
adornments – possibly in preparation for a separate work, or simply as practice.

45

16

AMRITA SHER‒GIL (1913‒1941)

Untitled
Watercolour on paper pasted on mountboard
6 x 5 in (15.1 x 13 cm)
Rs 25,00,000 ‒ 35,00,000
$33,785 ‒ 47,300
NON‒EXPORTABLE NATIONAL ART TREASURE
PROVENANCE
Acquired directly from the artist’s family
Private Collection, Mumbai

For a brief period in 1924, Marie Antoinette took her daughters to Italy and enrolled Amrita Sher‒Gil in a school in
Florence on the suggestion of her teachers and Italian sculptor Giulio Cesare Pasquinelli, with whom the family had
developed a close acquaintance. Though Sher‒Gil did not enjoy her time at the school, it is possible that her exposure
to the art of Italian masters sometimes seeped into her own work. In the summer of 1926, when she was back in Simla,
Amrita Sher‒Gil’s uncle Ervin Baktay came to India and stayed with them. At this time, Sher‒Gil was taking lessons with
British artists Major Whitmarsh and Hal Bevan Petman, although their conventional style may not have yielded many
results. Baktay became an important influence on her artistic development, and it was on his suggestion that the family
moved to Paris in 1929, where Sher‒Gil joined La Grande Chaumiere and began to train under Pierre Vaillant. 
"The painter in Ervin was quick to recognize Amrita's artistic talent, and he guided her to move away from her highly
emotional early paintings and to draw from reality, emphasizing structure rather than naturalism. Under her uncle's
direction, her lines started to become strong and angular, whether in a head of Beethoven or a self‒portrait." (Vivan
Sundaram ed., Amrita Sher‒Gil: A Self‒Portrait in Letters & Writings, Volume 1, New Delhi: Tulika Books, 2010, p. xl)
Nonetheless, Sher‒Gil retained her skill for portraying emotion, as seen in the present lot, and as she gained more
experience, her sensibilities would mature to create subtle, yet powerful works.

46

47

17

KRISHEN KHANNA (b.1925)

Untitled
Signed and dated ‘KKhanna/ Feb 82’ (on the reverse)
1982
Oil on canvas
59 x 44.5 in (150 x 113 cm)
Rs 50,00,000 ‒ 60,00,000
$67,570 ‒ 81,085
PROVENANCE
Sotheby’s, New York, 25 March 2011, lot 241
Private Collection, New Delhi

The present lot is part of the Christ series that Krishen Khanna explored throughout his career. His characters, however,
embody the subaltern figures from contemporary Delhi, specifically the Nizamuddin Bhogal area where he lived for over
a decade. Khanna’s choice in conflating the two characters was inspired by a personal memory when he drove to Simla
with his father. On their way, they stopped at a dhaba for tea, and his father remarked that any of the waiters at the café
could be a Christ figure.
According to Gayatri Sinha, Khanna’s concern with depicting Christ “is informed by a sense of the tragic. In his work the
religious context becomes overwhelmingly social; we do not see Christ, the son of God, as reformer, healer, preacher,
iconoclast, as leader of men. Instead he becomes the human prototype pushed to the brink by betrayal and greed.
The figures have a strongly defined quality, the rugged physique of the labour class, sun darkened bodies and rough,
even callous faces. The Christian theme becomes a subaltern, Indian tragedy, of the outcome of conflict with figures of
authority…” (Gayatri Sinha, Krishen Khanna, New Delhi: Vadehra Art Gallery, 2001, p. 135)
In depicting these paintings, Khanna uses the device of an architectural backdrop with neoclassical features such as the
arches, columns, and balconies associated with British Indian architecture, as seen in the present lot. With this stylistic
element, Khanna “removes all necessity of painting a background and effectively places the figure in front, as on a
narrow stage… The neoclassic arches and pillars recall the architecture of British‒Indian police stations dotted around
the country and are emblematic of colonial power.” (Sinha, pp. 137‒138)

48

49

Image courtesy of M F Husain Foundation

“But I am still concerned with the mysteries of human panorama,
and entranced watching the immortal dance of Nataraja – and
then come down to the earth, to be reborn again and again
through the voluminous womb of Venus d’Avignon.”  M F HUSAIN