World's leading art auction house Christie's will be conducting auctions of South Asian modern and contemporary art, including Francis Newton Souza's epic work 'Birth', in New York tomorrow.
The art sale celebrates 20 years of stand-alone auctions in this category of South Asian art, Christie's said in a statement, adding this is the longest in the industry.
The major highlight of the sale is Souza's epic "Birth" which holds the world auction record price of USD 2.5 million set at Christie's in 2008, said Christie's international head of contemporary Indian art, Deepanjana Klein.
Christie's first established a platform for Indian art in London, then added New York 20 years ago and in 2013 it added Mumbai as an auction location.
Klein said modern Indian art is now seen in a different light following Vasudeo S Gaitonde's retrospective at the Guggenheim Museum in New York.
"We are the only auction house to commit to offering South Asian art consistently in three locations, New York, London and Mumbai," Klein added.
Souza (1924-2002) painted the masterpiece in 1955, the same year of his seminal solo exhibition at Gallery One in London. Other works of Souza include the pregnant outstretched nude with hairpins, the autobiographical man in a priest's tunic, a still life on the window ledge and beyond the window, a town scape with corniced buildings and tall steeples. These works may carry a price tag of USD 2.2-2.8 million.
The auction will also include a rare early work on card by Vasudeo S Gaitonde (1924-2001). Gaitonde received unprecedented posthumous acclaim by setting a world auction record for any Indian modern painting in Christie's first auction in India at USD 2.5 million.
Other works include Syed Haider Raza's untitled cityscape with an estimated price of USD 4,50,000-6,00,000; Ram Kumar's untitled 'Couple' likely to fetch USD 60,000-80,000; and works by Akbar Padamsee and Manjit Bawa (1941-2008) among others.
Christie's had global auction and private sales in the first half of 2015 that totalled USD 4.5 billion. In 2014, Christie's had global auction and private sales that totalled USD 8.4 billion, making it the highest annual total in Christie's history.
