December 12-13, 2011
- Saffronart’s Winter Online Art Auction 2011 features 80 works by 36 modern and contemporary Indian artists with a total estimate of Rs 14.1 crore to Rs 17.8 crore (US$ 2.8 million to US$ 3.6 million)
- Leading the sale is F.N. Souza’s seminal 1953 painting ‘Man with Still Life’
- The auction also features modern works by Ram Kumar, S.H. Raza, Rameshwar Broota and Jehangir Sabavala alongside those of contemporary artists like Sudhir Patwardhan, N.S. Harsha, Anju Dodiya and Nataraj Sharma.
Mumbai, December 5, 2011: Saffronart, India’s leading auction house, will showcase the works of modern masters and contemporary artists at its annual Winter Online Art Auction. With a total of 80 lots, the sale includes a wide variety of paintings, works on paper and sculpture of exceptional provenance and quality by 36 leading artists, and will take place online at www.saffronart.com on December 12-13, 2011.
The auction catalogue includes a wide range of Indian artworks, including a selection of extraordinary paintings by modern masters including Ram Kumar, S.H. Raza, Rameshwar Broota and Jehangir Sabavala. In addition, the sale also features some outstanding works by contemporary artists Sudhir Patwardhan, N.S. Harsha, Anju Dodiya and Nataraj Sharma. All the lots in this auction catalogue have been carefully selected and competitively estimated, to engage both seasoned and emerging collectors
On the cover of the catalogue is F.N. Souza’s magnificent 1953 portrait, ‘Man with Still Life’. Painted in the same year as the two of the artist’s other seminal works, Mystic Repast and Man with Monstrance, this work combines Souza’s powerful figurative idiom with a regal still life. Influenced by the uneasy relationship that the artist shared with organised religion throughout his life, specifically Roman Catholicism, this painting critically interrogates the notion of divine sanction through the representatives and objects of this faith. The figure, likely a priest, is dressed in a dull gold tunic with a cross-hatched pattern at the neck. However, rather than a grand countenance to match his robe, Souza renders his subject’s face almost mask-like, with large, empty eye sockets, robbing him of all traces of humanness. Symbolic perhaps of a blind leader, he stands behind an altar-like platform on which ecclesiastical objects have been placed.
Ram Kumar’s ‘Untitled’, painted in 1975, another modern masterpiece included in this auction catalogue, is representative of the zenith of the artist’s deconstructionist abstraction. This abstract visual vocabulary was neither intended to startle his viewers, nor to disconnect the artist from them and the rest of the world. Instead, it demands a pause and deep reflection, forging a bond between the work and the viewer. Transcending the familiar, Kumar’s large canvases like this one create a sense of timelessness that both emphasizes and absorbs the individual.
Also included in the catalogue is Rameshwar Broota’s epic and irreverent canvas, ‘Sewadar’. Painted in 1972, it is part of the artist's seminal ‘Ape’ series of works, which offer his satirical take on the leadership of the nation, with a particular focus on their conspicuous consumption despite the poverty of their people. Deeply aware of and affected by socio-political developments, Broota’s primitive figuration explores sociopolitical realities, pre-social existence, and the possibility of post-social man as a critique of economic and political corruption, and the excesses that cause it. Raising questions of corruption, power and justice, ‘Sewadar’ underscores the creeping rot that was consuming the country’s political establishment at the time.
Another highlight of the auction is Sudhir Patwardhan’s untitled 2006 cityscape, which communicates the simultaneously intimate and complex relationship that the artist has shared with his city, Mumbai, for several decades now. This monumental, densely populated canvas, like many of the artist's other paintings, draws from his collection of photographic images taken at various time and in various locations across the city.
The total lower and higher estimates for this auction are Rs 14.1 crore to Rs 17.8 crore (US$ 2.8 million to US$ 3.5 million). The sale will be accompanied by an illustrated print catalogue, also available online at www.saffronart.com, along with previews and viewings in London, New York, New Delhi and Mumbai. The sale will take place online on December 12-13. Collectors may also place bids via Saffronart’s proprietary Blackberry and iPhone mobile applications.
