Christie’s 'The India Sale' on December 11 to showcase some rare works

MUMBAI: Around this time last year, VS Gaitonde’s luminous yellow canvas was snapped up for Rs 23 crore at Christie’s maiden auction in India. It was a record, not only for the modernist painter but also for Indian art. Christie’s second auction, The India Sale, will be held on December 11.

Eighty modern and contemporary works will go under the hammer, giving private collectors and museums the chance to acquire another Gaitonde, one of his last works that has never been offered for sale at auction before. The painting is expected to sell forRs 5.5-7 crore. However, it’s not the highest valued work at the auction. That privilege goes to Tyeb Mehta’s Falling Bull — the 1999 canvas is estimated to fetch Rs 8.5 -12 crore.

For the first time Christie’s has brought works from outside India in addition to those sourced locally for the auction. Last year, 35% of the buyers were new to Christie’s, said international director of Asian art, Amin Jaffer, who is expecting this to increase this year. The biggest difference this year is that the collection is entirely curated by the auction house. Last year, there was a large proportion of works from the estate of Kekoo and Khorshed Gandhy, the Mumbai-based gallery owners.

Apart from bidding at the venue, buyers can also do so by phone or online. The auction will feature works by artists such as Rabindranath and Gaganendranath Tagore, Ram Kumar, Tyeb Mehta, MF Husain, SH Raza and Francis Newton Souza. These will be up for bidding alongside 10 contemporary pieces donated by artists such as Subodh Gupta and Bharti Kher to benefit Khoj, the artist residency programme established in India in 1997.




A small group of rare, unseen canvases and works on paper from the 1970s by Nasreen Mohamedi are also for sale. They will be of special interest given their provenance and following the recent exhibitions of Mohamedi’s work at the Tate Liverpool in the United Kingdom and the Kiran Nadar Museum of Art in New Delhi.