Global auctioneer Christie's, who made a splash in India with its maiden auction in Mumbai last December, is holding a public exhibition of select artworks set for sale at the Asian Art Week in New York next month.
The New York auction includes 26 masterpieces by modern masters such as V S Gaitonde, Francis Newton Souza and Bhupen Khakhar, alongside international contemporary artists sourced from the collection of Shumita and Arani Bose.
An untitled work by Gaitonde painted in 1971 is among the highlights of the upcoming sale at Rockfeller Centre in New York on September 17 and the two-day public preview beginnig August 20 at the Taj Mahal hotel here.
Auctioneers have estimated Gaitonde's work to fetch between USD 750,000 - USD 900,000.
Gaitonde, whose style is a symphony of minimalist abstract and conceptual aestheticse, had fetched a record Rs 23.70 crore for an untitled work at Christie's Mumbai auction in December 2013.
Among the 14 artworks displayed at the public preview here include Francis Newton Souza's monumental masterpiece 'The Butcher', painted in 1962 on black satin whilst living in London, where his talent and reputation were firmly cemented.
'The Butcher' represents the apex of the raw, expressionist style that characterised Souza's works in this series and is influenced by the works of El Greco and Goya as well as the Romanesque paintings and Catalonian frescos he saw on an earlier visit to Spain.
Painted in 1962 the artwork has been estimated at USD 1.5- USD 2 million.
Twenty years ago, Shumita and Arani Bose co-founded the New York based Bose Pacia, the first gallery in the West specialising exclusively in contemporary South Asian art.
Following the auction of "A Pioneering Vision: Works from the collection of Schumita and Arani Bose" is the South Asian Modern and Contemporary Art sale, set to feature 70 lots, offering iconic works by leading modernist masters Manjit Bawa, Syed Haider Raza, and Jagdish Swaminathan.
A monumental masterpiece Untitled (Durga) by Manjit Bawa is set to lead the sale and will also be showcased here, the auctioneers said.
