1 WINTER AUCTIONS 2023 13 DECEMBER 2023 | LIVE | MUMBAI 1314 DECEMBER 2023 | ONLINE
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5 CONTENTS Front cover Lot 38 Back cover Lot 43 Inside front cover Lot 13 Inside back cover Lot 182 Facing page Lot 41 6 SALES AND ENQUIRIES 8 LIVE AUCTION CATALOGUE 144 ONLINE AUCTION CATALOGUE 312 CLOSING SCHEDULE 313 ABSENTEE/PROXY BID FORM 315 FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS 320 CONDITIONS FOR SALE 332 INDEX
6 OUR TEAM DINESH VAZIRANI CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER AND CO‒FOUNDER MINAL VAZIRANI PRESIDENT AND CO‒FOUNDER PUNYA NAGPAL SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT ABHA HOUSEGO SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT INTERNATIONAL, LONDON ANU NANAVATI SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT INTERNATIONAL, NEW YORK CLIENT RELATIONS AASHISH DUBEY SENIOR MANAGER CLIENT RELATIONS DHANASHREE WAIKAR ASSOCIATE VICE PRESIDENT CLIENT RELATIONS SHAHEEN VIRANI ASSOCIATE VICE PRESIDENT CLIENT RELATIONS DEEPIKA SHAH SENIOR MANAGER CLIENT RELATIONS AMIT KAPOOR ASSOCIATE VICE PRESIDENT JEWELLERY ANJALI GHATGE MANAGER FINANCE CHANDRA POOJARI SENIOR MANAGER LOGISTICS AKSHAY KHURANA AUCTION CLERK DARPANA CAPOOR SENIOR MANAGER CLIENT RELATIONS ALKA SAMANT VICE PRESIDENT DESIGN DESIGN JATIN LAD SENIOR DESIGNER MAIA JASUBHOY MANAGER CLIENT RELATIONS, LONDON EDITORIAL NARSINGRAO CHIEF TECHNICAL ARCHITECT VINAY BHATE VICE PRESIDENT FINANCE YASH GADHIYA HEAD OF TECHNOLOGY AND PRODUCT MANU CHANDRA HEAD OF OPERATIONS OPERATIONS AND FINANCE NICOLE NEWBY SENIOR EDITORIAL MANAGER
7 MUMBAI 25 November – 14 December 2023 11 am – 7 pm, Monday to Saturday Sunday (by appointment only) VENUE Industry Manor, Ground and 3rd Floor, Appasaheb Marathe Marg, Prabhadevi, Mumbai 400025 LIVE AUCTION Wednesday, 13 December 2023 Registration: 6.30 pm | Auction: 7.30 pm AUCTIONEERS DINESH VAZIRANI | PUNYA NAGPAL Select lots may be viewed in Mumbai, New Delhi, and London. ONLINE AUCTION DATES Start: Wednesday, 13 December 2023, 10 pm Indian Standard Time (11:30 am US Eastern Time and 4:30 pm UK Time on 13 December 2023) Close: Thursday, 14 December 2023, 8 pm Indian Standard Time onwards (9:30 am US Eastern Time and 2:30 pm UK Time on 14 December 2023) Please note that bidding closes at different times according to Lot Groups. These times have been listed in the Bid Closing Schedule. VIEWINGS SALES TEAM AND AUCTION ENQUIRIES Mumbai Contact: Punya Nagpal, Dhanashree Waikar, Shaheen Virani, Aashish Dubey, or Deepika Shah Email: [email protected] | Tel: +91 22 68554155 New Delhi Contact: Amit Kapoor or Darpana Capoor | Email: [email protected] | Tel: +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, Ground Floor and 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 ONLINE AUCTION 13 – 14 December 2023 All bidding will take place at saffronart.com. All lots are published in the printed catalogue and e‒catalogue and may also be viewed on the website. NEW DELHI 25 November – 14 December 2023 11 am – 7 pm, Monday to Saturday Sunday (by appointment only) VENUE The Oberoi Dr Zakir Hussain Marg New Delhi 110003 LONDON 2 – 14 December 2023 11 am – 6 pm, Monday to Friday Saturday, Sunday (by appointment only) VENUE 73 New Bond Street 1st Floor, London, W1S 1RS
8 The following lots 1 ‒ 33 are located in India and may only be bid upon in INR currency. For further details, please refer to the Conditions for Sale at the end of the catalogue.
9 1 JAMINI ROY (1887‒1972) Untitled (Deer in a Landscape) Signed in Bengali (lower right) Circa 1940s Tempera on cardboard 16 x 10.5 in (40.5 x 26.5 cm) Rs 6,00,000 ‒ 8,00,000 $7,320 ‒ 9,760 NON‒EXPORTABLE NATIONAL ART TREASURE PROVENANCE Acquired directly from the artist in 1943 by Stuart Gelder, war correspondent for the News Chronicle in India Thence by descent Private UK Collection Acquired from the above EXHIBITED South Asian Modern Art 2023, London: Grosvenor Gallery, 9 ‒ 30 June 2023 PUBLISHED South Asian Modern Art 2023, London: Grosvenor Gallery, 2023, p. 19 (illustrated)
10 Born in the Bankura district of West Bengal in 1887, Jamini Roy was trained in academic realism at the Government School of Art, Calcutta, at the age of 16 and went on to become a prolific portrait painter early on in his career. However, the strong wave of nationalism that swept India in the early 20th century urged him to question and reflect upon his approach towards art. Dismissing the prevailing Western academic painting style as well as the revivalist Bengal School movement led by Abanindranath Tagore, he expressed a desire to create works that were relatable to a larger Indian audience. He turned to Indian artistic traditions and tribal art forms and developed a signature style that accentuated the linear expression of Indian folk art, which he would become best known for. Between 1920 and 1930, Roy experimented with the motifs, symbols, and chromatic range of Bengali art traditions, especially the flatness and narrative quality of art forms such as pattachitra, Kalighat scroll paintings, and terracotta objects from Bankura, his birthplace. As seen in the present lot, he developed a distinctive style defined by flat colours, rhythmic bold lines, iconic frontality, and decoration. “His experiments with forms continued for he well realised that forms bear the testimony to a people, their civilization and their history, etc. For further simplification and evolving his own idiom he also drew inspiration from child art. Instead of oil he religiously used traditional pigments from vegetable and mineral sources.” (Debashis Dhar, “Jamini Roy: A Martyr to his own Mastery,” Jamini Roy: National Art Treasure, Kolkata: Purba Publications, 2015, p. 79) Roy also increasingly preferred working with tempera from local pigments, binder, and water. This reconfiguration of style led him to explore a range of themes including Hindu mythology (as seen in the present lot which depicts the figure of Krishna), Santhal women, the life of Christ, and Indian folklore. Thus, Jamini Roy’s oeuvre established a completely new form of modernism in Indian art. Art historian Sona Datta asserts, “Jamini Roy signifies not just the advent of modern Indian art but the modern Indian artist.” (Sona Datta, Urban Patua: The Art of Jamini Roy, Mumbai: Marg Publications, 2010, p. 91) Jamini Roy © Gabriel Irwin Reproduced with kind permission of the photographer’s son
11 2 JAMINI ROY (1887‒1972) Untitled Signed in Bengali (lower right) Tempera on cloth pasted on board 15 x 29 in (38 x 73.5 cm) Rs 18,00,000 ‒ 22,00,000 $21,955 ‒ 26,830 NON‒EXPORTABLE NATIONAL ART TREASURE PROVENANCE Acquired directly from the artist, Kolkata, 1958 Private Collection, USA Sotheby’s, New York, 19 March 2008, lot 5 Private Collection, New Delhi EXHIBITED Living Traditions & the Art of Jamini Roy, Mumbai: DAG, 2 April ‒ 22 May 2023 PUBLISHED Living Traditions & the Art of Jamini Roy, Mumbai: DAG, 2023, p. 2‒3 (illustrated)
"The presence and influence of the Portuguese, Dutch, French, and the British in Bengal, over a period of about four centuries, led to the eventual emergence of the Early Bengal School of painting."
13 3 EARLY BENGAL SCHOOL Radha and Krishna Mid‒late 19th century Oil on canvas 29.5 x 22 in (75 x 56 cm) Rs 12,00,000 ‒ 18,00,000 $14,635 ‒ 21,955 NON‒EXPORTABLE REGISTERED ANTIQUITY PROVENANCE Private Collection, Kolkata Acquired from the above Untitled (Radha and Krishna) Late 19th century
14 reverse "Amrita Sher‒Gil showed an inclination for exploring feminine themes from a young age. She was drawn to depicting women 'in an emotionally charged and sensuous manner.'" — (Vivan Sundaram ed., Amrita Sher‒Gil: A Self Portrait in Letters & Writings, Volume 1, New Delhi: Tulika Books, 2010, p. xi)
15 4 AMRITA SHER‒GIL (1913‒1941) Untitled Front: Pencil and watercolour on paper Reverse: Pencil on paper 11 x 8.5 in (28 x 21.5 cm) Rs 20,00,000 ‒ 30,00,000 $24,395 ‒ 36,590 NON‒EXPORTABLE NATIONAL ART TREASURE This is a double‒sided work PROVENANCE Acquired directly from the artist's family Private Collection, Mumbai front
16 ab 5 KRISHNA REDDY (1925‒2018) a) Spider Web Signed ‘N.Krishna Reddy’ (lower right), inscribed “‘Spider Web”’ (lower centre) and further inscribed ‘Imp. by the artist’ (lower left) Circa 1960s Viscosity on paper pasted on mount board Print size: 18 x 12 in (45.5 x 30.5 cm) Sheet size: 25 x 19.5 in (63.5 x 49.5 cm) This work is inscribed ‘Imp by the artist’, indicating it was printed by the artist himself. From a limited edition of five. b) Dawn Worshipper Signed 'N.Krishna Reddy' (lower right), inscribed "DAWN WORSHIPER" [sic] (lower centre) and further inscribed 'Imp. by the artist' (lower left) Circa 1970s Viscosity on paper Print size: 15 x 18.5 in (38 x 47 cm) Sheet size: 25 x 19.5 in (63.5 x 49.5 cm) This work is inscribed ‘Imp by the artist’, indicating it was printed by the artist himself. From a limited edition of ten. Rs 2,00,000 ‒ 4,00,000 $2,440 ‒ 4,880 (Set of two) PROVENANCE Acquired directly from the artist From a Prominent Collection, New Delhi
17 6 B PRABHA (1933‒2001) Untitled Signed and dated ‘b.prabha./ 1966.’ (lower left) 1966 Acrylic on canvas 22 x 16.25 in (56 x 41 cm) Rs 10,00,000 ‒ 15,00,000 $12,200 ‒ 18,295 PROVENANCE Acquired from Chemould Art Gallery, Kolkata Bukowskis Stockholm, 18 November 2021, lot 479 Private Collection, New Delhi
18 Ram Kumar Image courtesy of the artist
19 7 RAM KUMAR (1924‒2018) Untitled Signed ‘Ram Kumar’ (on the reverse) Acrylic on canvas 14.75 x 10.75 in (37.5 x 27.5 cm) Rs 7,00,000 ‒ 9,00,000 $8,540 ‒ 10,980 PROVENANCE Acquired directly from the artist An Important Private Collection, New Delhi
20 8 RAM KUMAR (1924‒2018) Untitled Signed and dated ‘Ram Kumar 05’ (on the reverse) 2005 Acrylic on paper 19.5 x 29.25 in (49.5 x 74.5 cm) Rs 6,00,000 ‒ 8,00,000 $7,320 ‒ 9,760 PROVENANCE Vadehra Art Gallery, New Delhi Private Collection, Mumbai
21 9 F N SOUZA (1924‒2002) Untitled Signed and dated ‘Souza 1960’ (upper left) 1960 Ink and gouache on paper 9.75 x 7.75 in (25 x 19.5 cm) Rs 15,00,000 ‒ 20,00,000 $18,295 ‒ 24,395 PROVENANCE Acquired in Karachi, circa 1990s Thence by descent Private Collection, New Delhi
22 10 G R SANTOSH (1929‒1997) Enlightenment Signed in Devnagari and dated ‘62’ (upper left); signed and dated ‘G. R. Santosh/ 9/2/62’ (on the reverse), and inscribed ‘ENLIGHTMENT’ [sic] (on the stretcher bar, on the reverse) 1962 Oil and wax on canvas 34 x 41 in (86.5 x 104 cm) Rs 8,00,000 ‒ 12,00,000 $9,760 ‒ 14,635 PROVENANCE Acquired directly from the artist by William Begley, Kashmir, 1963‒1965 Gifted by William Begley to his cousin, 1969 Thence by descent Bonhams, London, 22 November 2022, lot 13 Private Collection, New Delhi
23 11 JOGEN CHOWDHURY (b.1939) Untitled Signed and dated in Bengali (lower right), signed ‘JOGEN’ (upper left) and dated ‘2018’ (upper right) 2018 Mixed media on paper pasted on mount board 9.75 x 6.25 in (24.5 x 16 cm) Rs 8,00,000 ‒ 10,00,000 $9,760 ‒ 12,200 PROVENANCE Property from an Important Collection based in North India Private Collection, Kolkata PUBLISHED Soumik Nandy Majumdar and Jesal Thacker eds., Jogen Chowdhury: Shadow Lines: Tracing the Journey, Kolkata: Gallery Art Exposure, 2023, p. 680 (illustrated)
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25 12 JOGEN CHOWDHURY (b.1939) Reclining Woman Signed and dated in Bengali (lower centre), signed ‘Jogen Chowdhury’ (upper right) and dated ‘2007’ (upper left) 2007 Pastel and charcoal on paper pasted on mount board 19.75 x 39.25 in (50 x 100 cm) Rs 35,00,000 ‒ 45,00,000 $42,685 ‒ 54,880 PROVENANCE Distinguished Private Collection, Kolkata Thence by descent Private Collection, Kolkata Acquired from the above “We can never deny the validity of the human figure as an image because we can never deny the validity of our own existence… figuration itself is a fundamental expression, linked to the story of human life. As long as human civilisation endures, figurative art is bound to endure…” JOGEN CHOWDHURY EXHIBITED Ways of Seeing: Women Artists | Women as Muse, New Delhi: DAG, 12 February ‒ 7 March 2021 Primitivism and Modern Indian Art (Second Edition), New Delhi: DAG, 18 December 2021 – 24 April 2022 PUBLISHED Ways of Seeing: Women Artists | Women as Muse, New Delhi: DAG, 2021, p. 244 (illustrated) Primitivism and Modern Indian Art (Second Edition), New Delhi: DAG, 2021, p. 256 (illustrated)
26 13 GULAM MOHAMMED SHEIKH Ark: Kashmir
27 Gulam Mohammed Sheikh © Jyoti Bhatt
28 Gulam Mohammed Sheikh has played a seminal role in shaping contemporary art in India, as an artist, poet, and educator. The pluralistic nature of the small town of Surendranagar in Saurashtra, northwestern Gujarat, where he was born in 1937, proved formative to his intellectual and artistic outlook. Though he came from a Muslim family, he also studied Hindu and Jain texts written in Gujarati and Hindi, Vedic and Upanishadic literature, and the poetry of Kalidasa while still at school. He once remarked, “In a way, I learnt more about belief systems other than the one in which I was born.” (Chaitanya Sambrani, “Small Town Beginnings: Surendranagar 1937–55,” Chaitanya Sambrani ed., At Home in the World: The Art and Life of Gulammohamed Sheikh, New Delhi: Tulika Books in association with Vadehra Art Gallery, 2019, p. 98) He enrolled at MS University, Baroda, in 1955, under the tutelage of N S Bendre, Sankho Chaudhri, and K G Subramanyan, and later joined as faculty in 1960. Here he was exposed to a wide range of pedagogic and artistic practices from across India, Europe, and America, which prompted a search for his own visual identity. Unlike many of his contemporaries who had moved to abstraction, Sheikh remained a figurative painter for most of his career. In 1962, he became part of Group 1890, an artists’ collective whose members included Jagdish Swaminathan, Jeram Patel, Jyoti Bhatt, and Ambadas. Though the group opposed both the idealism of the Bengal School and mannerism of European Modernism, “Sheikh and Swaminathan embarked on two quite distinct and occasionally opposing trajectories. Swaminathan pursued his opposition to historical fixity by becoming entirely ahistorical through a metaphysical embrace of the numinous, whereas Sheikh gravitated towards a trans‒historical position seeking out crossovers between civilizational narratives and committing himself to an engagement with lived experience and phenomenological diversity.” (Sambrani, p. 112)
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30 Nainsukh, A Boat Adrift on a River: Illustration to a Folk Legend, Jasrota, c. 1765‒1775 Bharat Kala Bhavan/Wikimedia Commons The imagery of the boat in Sheikh’s Ark series was inspired by an 18th ‒ century illustration by master miniaturist Nainsukh. A year later, Sheikh moved to London for three years on a Commonwealth Scholarship to study at the Royal College of Art (RCA). It was during this brief period that he further cemented his visual idiom. He developed a palette of burnt oranges and reds, tempered with blues and greens, and replaced the impasto of his Baroda years with a smoother surface and clearly demarcated areas of colour. His passion for photography fuelled the beginnings of his method of stitching together a narrative out of disparate imagery, seen in the present lot. The Indian miniature paintings he saw at the Victoria & Albert Museum and British Museum, which “merged oneiric intensity with close observation and a fine commitment to naturalism” (Sambrani, p. 114), also influenced him for decades to come. Many of Sheikh’s works, especially from the 1970s onwards, feature a careful layering of memory and fantasy, often in contemplation of the prevailing socio‒political milieu. “...we are... led to encountering a riot of overlapping images, an ethereal blend of fantastical colours, mediums that extend from collage to painting to three‒dimensional works, to a multitude of scenes and images, to scores of meanings, histories, events, memories and narratives.” (Arun Vadehra, “Foreword,” Sambrani, ed., p. 8) The present lot, a monumental canvas from 2015, features the imagery of an ark, which first appeared in the artist’s work in 2003 in response to the sectarian violence that had recently hit his home state of Gujarat. Set adrift on turbulent waters, with waves threatening to sink it at any moment, the ark speaks “of the covenant of wisdom and the refuge in the world that both seem utterly unattainable”. (Sambrani, p. 150) The form of the ark draws upon 18th‒century master miniaturist Nainsukh’s A Boat Adrift on a River: Illustration to a Folk Legend (c. 1765 – 1775). On one end of the boat sits poet and Sufi mystic Kabir, who frequently appeared in the artist’s later works including the series Kahat Kabir, which he started in 1996. “For Sheikh, the challenge of fundamentalist politics needed a response that explicitly situated the heterodox and the sceptical as integral aspects of Indian tradition. In Kabir he found a kindred voice that…spoke as part of a vital critical tradition in Indian philosophy and poetry. Kabir’s firm belief in the ability of the bhakta to achieve transcendental union with the formless divine went hand‒in‒hand with a sceptical, questioning and caustic attitude towards ritual observance officiated by priesthood…” (Sambrani, p. 139) At the other end of the ark sits a crouched figure, perhaps symbolising man’s baser instincts. Between the two figures is the bluish expanse of a water body filled with iconography referencing Indian, Western, and Oriental traditions, including the goddess Kali, a group of Eastern mystics, a temple, and Srinagar’s Hazratbal shrine, together alluding to Sheikh’s sustained interest in cross‒ cultural syncretism in Indian culture.
31 13 GULAM MOHAMMED SHEIKH (b.1937) Ark: Kashmir Signed and dated in Gujarati and inscribed ‘ASSOCIATE JALDIP CHAUHAN’ (upper right) 2015 Acrylic on canvas 54.5 x 73.5 in (138.5 x 187 cm) Rs 3,00,00,000 ‒ 5,00,00,000 $365,855 ‒ 609,760 PROVENANCE Acquired directly from the artist Private Collection, Mumbai
32 Jagdish Swaminathan rejected the idea that Indian modernism was solely influenced by the West and sought to establish a continuum between modern art and folk and tribal traditions by delving into the latter’s primitive symbolism as well as Indian art forms such as Pahari miniatures and Tantric art. He crafted a unique indigenous pictorial idiom that drew from basic symbols and geometric shapes found particularly in Central India and Himachal Pradesh, and also experimented with geometry and pure colour. The present lot appears to be an early example of his seminal Bird Mountain Tree series, which he began in the late 1960s. Spanning over two decades of his career, it features the three symbolic objects in various permutations, colours, and relationships, while retaining subtle distinctions. Many formal qualities of Pahari miniature paintings can be recognised in this composition, including the flat expanse of colour and fine detailing. “[The paintings] are suggestive, open to interpretation: as an expression of the self’s unity with nature, they can be seen as a visual equivalent to the transcendental principle expounded in the Upanishads. They also approximate the numen, the basis of most primitive art. Formally, they relate to the paintings of Paul Klee and to Pahari miniatures—Klee sought in his art the power of communion and an affinity with nature; the mystical aspirations are characteristic of Kangra paintings.” (Amrita Jhaveri, A Guide to 101 Modern and Contemporary Indian Artists, Mumbai: India Book House, 2005, p. 93) Swaminathan’s unique symbolism created through form and colour lend his paintings “a curious dualism. There is assertion, and also submission. There is defiance, and also prayer... there is a homage to the quiet, almost placid splendour of timelessness, of contained animation.” (Suren Navlakha, Exhibition of Paintings by J Swaminathan, New Delhi: Dhoomimal Gallery, 1979) Jagdish Swaminathan © Jyoti Bhatt
33 14 JAGDISH SWAMINATHAN (1928‒1994) Untitled Signed and dated in Devnagari (lower right) 1972 Watercolour, pen and ink on paper 14.25 x 10.5 in (36 x 26.5 cm) Rs 12,00,000 ‒ 18,00,000 $14,635 ‒ 21,955 PROVENANCE Dhoomimal Art Centre, New Delhi Private Collection, New Delhi
34 15 M F HUSAIN (1915‒2011) Untitled Signed 'Husain' (upper left) Ink and pastel on paper 11.75 x 14.25 in (30 x 36 cm) Rs 8,00,000 ‒ 12,00,000 $9,760 ‒ 14,635 PROVENANCE Acquired directly from the artist Private Collection, Mumbai
35 PROPERTY FROM A DISTINGUISHED COLLECTION, MUMBAI 16 M F HUSAIN 1915‒2011 Landscape Signed, inscribed and dated ‘Husain june 82/ London’ (lower right) and inscribed ‘Landscape’ (lower left) 1982 Watercolour on paper 14.25 x 21.5 in (36 x 54.5 cm) Rs 12,00,000 ‒ 15,00,000 $14,635 ‒ 18,295 PROVENANCE Sakshi Gallery, Mumbai “Art is always ahead of time. Tomorrow, they will understand it.” M F HUSAIN
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37 M F Husain used his modernist sensibilities to shape a visual language informed by diverse sources, including Indian folk and classical traditions, his travels, and the prevailing socio‒ political milieu. This allowed him to take his subjects out of their traditional contexts and imbue them with new meaning. The present lot combines two of the artist’s lifelong muses—the female figure and the horse—which frequently appeared in his oeuvre. A potent fusion of form and emotion, it juxtaposes the gracefulness of a woman against the power and virility of a horse, an animal that had fascinated him since his childhood. When he was a young boy in Indore, Husain would visit the local farrier with his grandfather where he’d encounter tonga horses and those belonging to the cavalry of the Holkar king. He was also captivated by the Dul Dul, the effigy of Prophet Muhammad’s nephew Imam Husain’s horse that was carried during Muharram processions. These formative experiences contributed to the development of the horse as one of earliest icons in the artist’s works, as he came to view the animal as a symbol of passion, strength, free‒will and vitality. Later influences also included the Sung dynasty renderings of horses, which he saw on his trip to China in 1952, and the works of German painter Franz Marc and sculptor Marino Marini.
38 17 M F HUSAIN (1915‒2011) Untitled Signed ‘Husain’ (upper right) Oil and acrylic on canvas 29.5 x 19.5 in (75 x 49.5 cm) Rs 1,00,00,000 ‒ 1,50,00,000 $121,955 ‒ 182,930 PROVENANCE Acquired directly from the artist Private Collection, New Delhi As seen in the present lot, Husain’s “horses are rampant or galloping; the manes, the fury, the working buttocks, the prancing legs, and the strong neighing heads with dilated nostrils are blocks of colour which are vivid or tactile or are propelled in their significant progression by strokes of the brush or sweeps of the palette knife. The activity depicted is transformed in the activity of paint... When we look at these creatures we must remember that the animal is not the subject of Husain’s painting; it is the daemonic principle that he depicts, and to him it is neither good nor bad... the horses... have become symbols of power and pursuit, or of mysterious encounters.” (Richard Bartholomew and Shiv S Kapur, Husain, New York: Harry N Abrams, Inc, 1972, p. 20) Shades of cerulean and cobalt blue along with the imagery of the moon lend the canvas a mysterious aura. A sculptural figure of a woman strikes the tribhanga pose, often seen in classical Indian art and dance, and appears to ride the horse “symbolically, as though she rode the wind.” (Bartholomew and Kapur, p. 44). This depiction of the female body was influenced by Husain’s encounter with Gupta sculptures at the 1948 Viceregal exhibition at Rashtrapati Bhavan, New Delhi, which he visited with fellow Progressive Artists’ Group member F N Souza, who was the first among his peers to reference ancient Indian sculpture in his work. “...it was in many ways a turning point in his career. It was at this juncture that he conceived his essential form that is pivotal to his work. He states, ‘One reason why I went back to the Gupta period of sculpture was to study the human form—when the British ruled we were taught to draw a figure with the proportions from Greek and Roman sculpture… That was what I thought was wrong…In the east the human form is an entirely different structure… the way a woman walks in the village there are three breaks…from the feet, the hips and shoulder…they move in rhythm…the walk of a European is erect and archaic.’” (Yashodhara Dalmia, “A Metaphor for Modernity,” The Making of Modern Indian Art, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, p. 102) Horses make frequent apperarances in Husain’s works as symbols of power and virility Untitled Untitled, 1983
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40 An artist, teacher, and intellectual, Narayan Shridhar Bendre was a pioneer of modern Indian art and an influential mentor to several prominent modernists including Shankar Palshikar, who went on to head the J J School of Art in Bombay, Jyoti Bhatt, Shanti Dave, and G M Sheikh. Born in Indore in 1910, he received his initial art education in 1929 at the newly opened State School of Art under the tutelage of D D Deolalikar. Bendre and his classmates were trained “... entirely through their observation of nature, never through books... They were taught to observe the behaviour of light at different hours of the day and night and were made to work even in the light of the hurricane patterns they carried. This was their introduction to an impressionistic palette that almost discarded black. They also became conscious of the fact that line did not exist in nature—it was an invention of the artist for the purpose of delineating form.” (Ram Chatterji, Bendre: The Painter and the Person, Mumbai: The Bendre Foundation for Art and Culture & Indus Corporation, 1990, p. 8) These teachings formed the foundation of his artistic career. After graduating from Holkar College in 1933, Bendre travelled widely across India, including South India, Lahore, Kashmir, and later Shantiniketan in Bengal, during the 1930s and 1940s. His subsequent exposure to American art movements and European masters, such as J M W Turner and John Constable, on a trip to the United States and Europe between 1947 and 1948 prompted him to adopt a new idiom which broke away from his previous style. “He felt convinced representation was not the ultimate goal for an artist. Emphasis had to be laid on ultrasensorial factors. To achieve this, it was essential to arrive at an integration of all forms, an interrelation of chosen elements. And for this, distortion was essential—no movement or action was possible without it.” (Chatterji, p. 41) He experimented variously with Abstraction, Cubism, and Expressionism, and incorporated and adapted these influences into his own style rooted in Indian formalism. His choice of subject matter included classically Indian themes such as birds and animals, quintessentially Indian landscapes, and figures in village settings—especially women whom he painted with great sensitivity. N S Bendre is best remembered for the pointillist technique he used to depict Indian landscapes and rural life in the later years of his career. Equally remarkable was his ability to create balance and harmony in his works through his intuitive use of colour. Untitled, 1983 Saffronart, 17 September 2022, lot 13 Sold for Rs 7.5 crores ($943,396)
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42 PROPERTY FROM A DISTINGUISHED COLLECTION, MUMBAI 18 N S BENDRE (1910‒1992) Untitled (Mother and Child) Signed and dated in Devnagari (lower right) 1987 Oil on canvas 24 x 24 in (61 x 61 cm) Rs 80,00,000 ‒ 1,00,00,000 $97,565 ‒ 121,955 PROVENANCE Sakshi Gallery, Mumbai Painted in 1987, just a few years before his death, the present lot is a fine example of Bendre’s Pointillist style which he first began practising after retiring as Dean of M S University, Baroda, in 1966. In his words, the primary aim was not a naturalistic depiction but “to catch the original impact of the total image conceived.” (Amrita Jhaveri, A Guide to 101 Modern & Contemporary Indian Artists, Mumbai: India Book House, 2005, p. 19) Comparing his technique to French Post‒Impressionists, the artist’s son Padmanabh remarked, “Unlike Seurat’s scientific method whereby he started by applying darker colour dots onto the canvas and then moved to lighter shades, dad’s technique was different in the sense that he had a more emotional and visceral response to his subjects and he worked backwards, from light to darkness.” (Shaikh Ayaz, “NS Bendre: The Compulsive Sketcher,” Open Magazine, online) The work is a lyrical example of Bendre’s scientific understanding of light and shadow and careful balancing of colour harmony to create a tranquil scene. Avoiding harsh lines (a choice that recalls his early art education with Deolalikar), he paints with a flat perspective and avoids shadows, instead conveying perspective by the gradual elimination of detail. It also exemplifies his belief in presenting a joyful visual experience through his art. “There is already a lot of misery in this world; I do not want to add to it. I paint because I derive pleasure from painting and I try to give pleasure to others. That is my philosophy of art.” (The artist quoted in “My Painting,” Chatterji, p. 64) N S Bendre Image courtesy of the Bendre family
43 “I don’t create dream paintings. Whatever I have experienced in this world, I paint.” N S BENDRE
44 “I am essentially a figurative painter with a strong predilection towards landscape. It is central to my work, and yet the figure whether wraithlike or human, is often present as a part of the whole.” JEHANGIR SABAVALA PROPERTY FROM A DISTINGUISHED COLLECTION, MUMBAI 19 JEHANGIR SABAVALA (1922‒2011) Maki Inscribed, dated and initialled ‘Maki/ 7th Nov 1945/ JAS’ (lower right); bearing Sakshi Gallery label (on the backing board) 1945 Pencil on paper pasted on mount board 21.75 x 15.25 in (55.5 x 38.5 cm) Rs 12,00,000 ‒ 15,00,000 $14,635 ‒ 18,295 PROVENANCE Sakshi Gallery, Mumbai PUBLISHED Ranjit Hoskote, The Crucible of Painting: The Art of Jehangir Sabavala, Mumbai: Eminence Designs, 2005, p. 36 (illustrated) Jehangir Sabavala Image courtesy of Shirin Sabavala
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46 PROPERTY FROM A DISTINGUISHED COLLECTION, MUMBAI 20 TYEB MEHTA (1925‒2009) Head (Study for Sculpture) Inscribed ‘Head (Study for Sculpture)’ (on the reverse) 1955 Ink on paper 14.5 x 10.75 in (37 x 27 cm) Rs 35,00,000 ‒ 45,00,000 $42,685 ‒ 54,880 PROVENANCE Vadehra Art Gallery, New Delhi Tyeb Mehta, 1959 Image courtesy of the artist’s family The human form was a lifelong preoccupation for Tyeb Mehta and a subject he used throughout his oeuvre as a mirror to society. These “figures work themselves into a pattern of focal images: pared, stripped‒down, even soundless, yet powerfully resonant, they embody an artist’s intuitions concerning his neighbours, his compatriots, his fellow prisoners in the nation‒state and on the planet, people who must live and work, love and fight, agonise and enjoy themselves within the same habitus…they attest to the churning chaos of Indian society, its antinomies of eroticism and violence, aggression and tenderness, helplessness and brute force.” (Ranjit Hoskote, Ramchandra Gandhi, et al, “Images of Transcendence: Towards a New Reading of Tyeb Mehta’s Art,” Tyeb Mehta: Ideas Images Exchanges, New Delhi: Vadehra Art Gallery, 2005, p. 15) The present lot, completed in 1955 at the start of Mehta’s artistic career, is an early drawing that was possibly used as a template for a sculpture. The head appears to be of the artist’s own likeness with features that are more realistic than those of his later figures. Even so, they are mildly misshapen and distorted, a stylistic device that would become more pronounced in his subsequent figures, especially those of the 1980s and 1990s. This was a manifestation of his contemplation on human nature and suffering, prompted by memories of the violence he witnessed as a young boy in Bombay during the Partition of India in 1947. In contrast to the violent, contorted, and fractured forms of Mehta’s goddesses and falling figures, the expression of the subject of this drawing conveys a certain stoicism. Despite the underlying despair and torment, the figure nevertheless embodies a certain dignity. As theatre director and curator Ebrahim Alkazi remarked during the artist’s first solo show a few years later in 1959, “...man is denuded, stricken, stripped of all elegance, charm, good looks, fleshy beauty but he has not lost his dignity…He is patient and enduring. He suffers; he accepts his suffering. Such art is not the art of despair but hope.” (Ebrahim Alkazi quoted in Hoskote, Gandhi, et al, “The Works of Tyeb Mehta,” p. 368)
47 “The human figure is my source, what I primarily react to.” TYEB MEHTA
48 21 SADANAND BAKRE (1920‒2007) Portrait Signed ‘BAKRE’ and dated in Devnagari (lower right); signed and inscribed ‘S.K. BAKRE’/ 27ST HELENS GDNS/ W.10/ “PORTRAIT”’ (on the reverse) 1959 Oil on Masonite 36 x 23.75 in (91.5 x 60.5 cm) Rs 28,00,000 ‒ 32,00,000 $34,150 ‒ 39,025 PROVENANCE Gifted by the artist to Mr. Absalom Peters, London, 1970s (Mr. Peters was a friend of the artist. For a short time in the 1970s, they shared a flat in London where the artist used the back bedroom as a studio. Bakre gifted this work to Mr. Peters upon returning to India permanently) Thence by descent Acquired from the above Sadanand Bakre was one of the founding members of the Bombay Progressive Artists’ Group alongside K H Ara, S H Raza, F N Souza, M F Husain and H A Gade. In 1939, he joined the J J School of Art in Bombay where he formally trained as a sculptor. He was mentored in modernism by Charles Garrard, the then head of the institution, and was first introduced to European and American modernist masters by Rudi von Leyden, Emmanuel Schlesinger, and Wayne Hartwell. His association with the Progressive Artists’ Group, which sought to reassert Indian art within an international framework, drove his own artistic trajectory. He participated in their early shows and by the late 1940s, developed a style characterised by “free‒ flowing form and unconventional shapes”. (Yashodhara Dalmia, “The View from the Wings,” The Making of Modern Indian Art, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, pp. 190‒191) Like his contemporary Souza, Bakre moved to England in 1950 with fellow artist Laxman Pai. It was here that he took up painting, often exhibiting his works with others at Hyde Park to earn a living. Though trained in academic realism, like many of his peers, he broke away from convention and favoured abstraction instead. He remarked, “I am traditionally trained and perfectly capable of accomplishing completely realistic work. But my interest in forms has gone far beyond the dull imitations of subject matter, which to me is almost unimportant.” (S K Bakre, “All Art is Either Good or Bad,” Free Press Bulletin, 24 March, 1965) Bakre’s paintings from this period appear as extensions of his sculptures. By the time the present lot was made, in 1959, he had arrived at what art historian Yashodhara Dalmia terms his “spiky phase” in which he created “small triangles wedged into each other to create geometrical shapes that reached out aggressively from all sides. There was an undefinable sense of urgency about them, as they disrupted space and created sharp, projecting jolts.” (Dalmia, p. 194) Delineated with strong, bold lines, the present lot underlines Bakre’s skill as both a draughtsman and a colourist and recalls the advice Garrad once gave him—“Make a sharp line. Whatever line you make, make it masterly, give it life.” (Dalmia, p. 189) Its angular, geometric forms were likely inspired by the Vorticists whom he was greatly influenced by. The members of the group “were known for their anti‒realist character and they expressed the human figure and its surroundings in a jagged, rhythmical, and linear style verging on total abstraction. The vigour and energy of modern life was shown in taut, expressive forms that favoured the angular over the curved, the hard over the soft, and the precise over the undefined.” (Dalmia, p. 195) Sadanand Bakre displaying his works outside Hyde Park in London in 1959 Image reproduced from Sadanand K Bakre, London: Grosvenor Gallery, 2023
49 “I paint as I like. It is a compelling passion with me to keep alive and I cannot help painting or sculpting.” SADANAND BAKRE
50 Bhupen Khakhar © Jyoti Bhatt