Modern India
SHER-GIL
Intro
Amrita Sher-Gil had all the qualities to become a pioneer in the globalization of art. She was born in Budapest to a Sikh aristocrat and a Hungarian opera singer and divided her childhood between India and Europe. From the initiative of an uncle, she studies art in Paris from 1929 to 1934.
Amrita painted intensely during those Parisian years, mostly self-portraits and portraits of friends. She observes her own transition from teenager to adulthood, which is also a passage from shyness to energy and from family life to the free life of Parisian students and artists. She analyzes her feelings with a high psychological curiosity, whilst complacently stating that her supreme model is Van Gogh.
On October 6, 2015, Sotheby's sold for £ 1.75M a self portrait, oil on canvas 55 x 46 cm, lot 18. She was 18 years old and her personality was becoming radiant. She reddened her thick lips and displayed her somehow plenty teenage appearance. The loose necklace gives an impression of spontaneity that contrasts nicely with her static attitude.
A self portrait in profile, oil on canvas 65 x 54 cm also painted in 1931, was sold for £ 1.76M by Christie's on June 10, 2015, lot 11. She is now a coquettish young woman promised in marriage to a young man by her family and loved by another. The profile has the meaning of her new attitude, now proud of herself and enjoying to be coveted. The empty bowl on the table before her is the past that she no longer watches.
Amrita admires Gauguin's tribute to the beauty of Tahitian women. In the Art Déco period, she also retains the expressive power of stylization, which will be increasingly visible in her own style after she returned to India in 1934.
On March 18, 2015, Sotheby's sold for $ 2.9M a self-portrait signed Rita, lot 1336. Please watch the video shared by the auction house. This oil on canvas 46 x 33 cm was painted in 1933 while she had her summer time in Hungary. Aged 20, Amrita shows herself as a welcoming and even enticing young woman, with her direct gaze, broad smile and heavily reddened lips.
Less known internationally than Frida Kahlo, Amrita is one of the women who best appreciated and influenced the avant-garde of her time. She is one of the nine artists whose works were classified National Art Treasures in 1972 by an official act of the Government of India, leading to a ban on the permanent leaving of any of her works.
Amrita painted intensely during those Parisian years, mostly self-portraits and portraits of friends. She observes her own transition from teenager to adulthood, which is also a passage from shyness to energy and from family life to the free life of Parisian students and artists. She analyzes her feelings with a high psychological curiosity, whilst complacently stating that her supreme model is Van Gogh.
On October 6, 2015, Sotheby's sold for £ 1.75M a self portrait, oil on canvas 55 x 46 cm, lot 18. She was 18 years old and her personality was becoming radiant. She reddened her thick lips and displayed her somehow plenty teenage appearance. The loose necklace gives an impression of spontaneity that contrasts nicely with her static attitude.
A self portrait in profile, oil on canvas 65 x 54 cm also painted in 1931, was sold for £ 1.76M by Christie's on June 10, 2015, lot 11. She is now a coquettish young woman promised in marriage to a young man by her family and loved by another. The profile has the meaning of her new attitude, now proud of herself and enjoying to be coveted. The empty bowl on the table before her is the past that she no longer watches.
Amrita admires Gauguin's tribute to the beauty of Tahitian women. In the Art Déco period, she also retains the expressive power of stylization, which will be increasingly visible in her own style after she returned to India in 1934.
On March 18, 2015, Sotheby's sold for $ 2.9M a self-portrait signed Rita, lot 1336. Please watch the video shared by the auction house. This oil on canvas 46 x 33 cm was painted in 1933 while she had her summer time in Hungary. Aged 20, Amrita shows herself as a welcoming and even enticing young woman, with her direct gaze, broad smile and heavily reddened lips.
Less known internationally than Frida Kahlo, Amrita is one of the women who best appreciated and influenced the avant-garde of her time. She is one of the nine artists whose works were classified National Art Treasures in 1972 by an official act of the Government of India, leading to a ban on the permanent leaving of any of her works.
1
1937 The Story Teller
2023 SOLD for INR 62 crores (worth US$ 7.4M) by Saffronart
After her brilliant years as an art student in Paris, Amrita Sher-Gil is back in her home country in 1934. She admires the murals at Ajanta, Padmanabhapuram, and Mattancheri.
Her palette becomes dominated by the reds and browns of her ancestral ground. She now desires to express the essence of traditional Indian life, physiognomies and attires through her perfect control of the European technique of the oil on canvas. Local characters display a grave expression exacerbated by her deep compassion for rural poverty. The simplified forms have been compared to Gauguin's. Her outdoor compositions are rare.
Story telling is a logical theme to Amrita Sher-Gil looking for the roots of Indian rural behavior. Such activity in the village is made obsolete by the broadcasting.
The Story Teller, oil on canvas 59 x 74 cm painted in 1937, was sold for INR 62 crores worth at that time US $ 7.4M from a lower estimate of INR 28 crores by Saffronart on September 16, 2023, lot 13. Please watch the video shared by the auction house. It is classified as a non-exportable national art treasure.
The scene is staging a group of women in a house yard. The woman seated on a chair on the left is the teller and the woman on her side who does not look at her is certainly her assistant. The group of listeners is made of four women seated in various postures plus a sheep, a calf and a dog. There is no place for men in the scenery : the only male figure is going away through a door.
Her palette becomes dominated by the reds and browns of her ancestral ground. She now desires to express the essence of traditional Indian life, physiognomies and attires through her perfect control of the European technique of the oil on canvas. Local characters display a grave expression exacerbated by her deep compassion for rural poverty. The simplified forms have been compared to Gauguin's. Her outdoor compositions are rare.
Story telling is a logical theme to Amrita Sher-Gil looking for the roots of Indian rural behavior. Such activity in the village is made obsolete by the broadcasting.
The Story Teller, oil on canvas 59 x 74 cm painted in 1937, was sold for INR 62 crores worth at that time US $ 7.4M from a lower estimate of INR 28 crores by Saffronart on September 16, 2023, lot 13. Please watch the video shared by the auction house. It is classified as a non-exportable national art treasure.
The scene is staging a group of women in a house yard. The woman seated on a chair on the left is the teller and the woman on her side who does not look at her is certainly her assistant. The group of listeners is made of four women seated in various postures plus a sheep, a calf and a dog. There is no place for men in the scenery : the only male figure is going away through a door.
The Evening Sale also achieved #worldrecords for 'The Story Teller', 1937, by Amrita Sher-Gil, which sold for Rs 61.8 crore, making it the highest value achieved for a work by the #artist in #auction worldwide and the most expensive #Indian #artwork sold in auction globally. pic.twitter.com/0MVbP0Uvbn
— Saffronart (@Saffronart) September 18, 2023
2
1938 In the Ladies' Enclosure
2021 SOLD for INR 38 crores (worth US$ 5.1M) by Saffronart
In the Ladies's Enclosure, oil on canvas 54 x 80 cm painted in 1938, features a group of four brown skinned veiled women surrendering at rest to their immuable but self accepted fate. They are accompanied by a young standing girl and a black dog. The composition is completed by a village scene and by two white dressed girls carrying a water pot on the head. Its style is influenced by Rajput miniature paintings. It is classified as a non-exportable national art treasure.
It was sold for INR 38 crores worth at that time US $ 5.1M from a lower estimate of INR 30 crores by Saffronart on July 13, 2021, lot 13.
It was sold for INR 38 crores worth at that time US $ 5.1M from a lower estimate of INR 30 crores by Saffronart on July 13, 2021, lot 13.
1954 Gram Yatra by Husain
2025 SOLD for $ 13.8M by Christie's
The Progressive Artists' Group was created in Bombay (later Mumbai) by six young artists, in 1947 at the time of the bloody riots that resulted from the partition of India and Pakistan. They desired to promote their various styles altogether inspired and departing from the new international art.
Maqbool Fida Husain was a founding member of the group and continued it from 1950 after Souza and Raza had left India. In an unprecedented epic style made of suites of vignettes, he was managing to express the mystic Indian traditions within the rural world, with bold colors in a stylized figuration.
An Untitled frieze painted in 1954 is one such pilgrimage to the village (Gram Yatra). Its thirteen panels are displaying a wide range of rural moments, capturing the relationship between earth and traditional peasants at work, expressing fertility and also populated by various animals. This oil on a single canvas 90 x 420 cm was sold for $ 13.8M from a lower estimate of $ 2.5M by Christie's on March 9, 2025, lot 715.
In the same style, another storyboard was painted in 1956 for the Biennale Internazionale d'Arte di Venezia. This oil on canvas 96 x 250 cm is made of nine painted elements and two blank areas. It was sold for £ 1.08M by Christie's on June 10, 2015, lot 27.
A separated vignette titled Yatra, oil on canvas 85 x 110 cm painted in 1955, was sold for $ 930K by Christie's on September 13, 2011, lot 13. A bullock draws in the field a cart populated by the monkey headed god Hanuman and his family. A similar image had been the central view of the 1954 Gram Yatra narrated above.
An assembly of nearly 20 elements titled Zameen, monumental oil on canvas painted in 1955, is kept at the National Gallery of Modern Art in New Delhi.
Maqbool Fida Husain was a founding member of the group and continued it from 1950 after Souza and Raza had left India. In an unprecedented epic style made of suites of vignettes, he was managing to express the mystic Indian traditions within the rural world, with bold colors in a stylized figuration.
An Untitled frieze painted in 1954 is one such pilgrimage to the village (Gram Yatra). Its thirteen panels are displaying a wide range of rural moments, capturing the relationship between earth and traditional peasants at work, expressing fertility and also populated by various animals. This oil on a single canvas 90 x 420 cm was sold for $ 13.8M from a lower estimate of $ 2.5M by Christie's on March 9, 2025, lot 715.
In the same style, another storyboard was painted in 1956 for the Biennale Internazionale d'Arte di Venezia. This oil on canvas 96 x 250 cm is made of nine painted elements and two blank areas. It was sold for £ 1.08M by Christie's on June 10, 2015, lot 27.
A separated vignette titled Yatra, oil on canvas 85 x 110 cm painted in 1955, was sold for $ 930K by Christie's on September 13, 2011, lot 13. A bullock draws in the field a cart populated by the monkey headed god Hanuman and his family. A similar image had been the central view of the 1954 Gram Yatra narrated above.
An assembly of nearly 20 elements titled Zameen, monumental oil on canvas painted in 1955, is kept at the National Gallery of Modern Art in New Delhi.
1955 Birth by Souza
2015 SOLD for $ 4.1M by Christie's
In London since 1949, Francis Newton Souza draws and paints grotesque portraits. While Bacon is inspired by Velazquez, Souza sees Titian. An oil on canvas 122 x 104 cm painted in 1955 titled Titian's grandfather was sold for INR 2.25 crores by Saffronart on December 6, 2007.
In the same year, the most important work by Souza is titled Birth. This oil on panel 122 x 244 cm was sold for $ 4.1M from a lower estimate of $ 2.2M by Christie's on September 17, 2015, lot 709.
The anti-religious concern of the artist at that time enables to interpret this scene as a pastiche of the Christian Nativity. The atmosphere of the apartment is dark like a barn but the urban landscape of Hampstead where Souza then tried to live is visible through a structure resembling the stained glass windows of a church.
The pregnant woman is nude. Her hemispherical belly is close to the explosion. The bearded man in liturgical garments on the left of the image does not care for her. She is not appealing. He is the image of sin, or perhaps a self-portrait. The focal point of Souza against the Christian religion is the hypocrisy of redemption. The texture of the naked body is a cracked indecipherable graffiti which adds to the abjection of the scene, anticipating Twombly.
Critics see Manet's Olympia as a model for this woman by Souza. I would instead be tempted to recognize the Venus of Urbino, a symbol of fertility and thus indirectly of sin painted by Titian, one of the top Christian artists.
In the same year, the most important work by Souza is titled Birth. This oil on panel 122 x 244 cm was sold for $ 4.1M from a lower estimate of $ 2.2M by Christie's on September 17, 2015, lot 709.
The anti-religious concern of the artist at that time enables to interpret this scene as a pastiche of the Christian Nativity. The atmosphere of the apartment is dark like a barn but the urban landscape of Hampstead where Souza then tried to live is visible through a structure resembling the stained glass windows of a church.
The pregnant woman is nude. Her hemispherical belly is close to the explosion. The bearded man in liturgical garments on the left of the image does not care for her. She is not appealing. He is the image of sin, or perhaps a self-portrait. The focal point of Souza against the Christian religion is the hypocrisy of redemption. The texture of the naked body is a cracked indecipherable graffiti which adds to the abjection of the scene, anticipating Twombly.
Critics see Manet's Olympia as a model for this woman by Souza. I would instead be tempted to recognize the Venus of Urbino, a symbol of fertility and thus indirectly of sin painted by Titian, one of the top Christian artists.
MEHTA
1
1956 Trussed Bull
2025 SOLD for INR 62 crores (worth US$ 7.3M) by Saffronart
After a visit to a slaughterhouse in Mumbai, the bull bound for being butchered becomes for Tyeb Mehta a symbol of the horrible human oppression during the bloody riots of the Indian partition.
A Trussed Bull painted in 1956 is his first major painting on that subject, inspired from an Egyptian bas relief exhibited in London at the British Museum. His realistic figuration expresses the resilience of the powerful beast. It is made in colored impastos limited by thick black lines.
This oil on canvas 94 x 105 cm was sold for INR 62 crores worth US $ 7.3M from a lower estimate of INR 5 crores by Saffronart on April 2, 2025, lot 13.
On the same theme, Mehta executed an award winning film in a slaughterhouse in 1970.
Please watch the video shared by the auction house, taking the opportunity of one of the latest works by Mehta in the same sale for offering an overall review of his oeuvre. The 2006 painting was sold for INR 9 crores, lot 15.
A Trussed Bull painted in 1956 is his first major painting on that subject, inspired from an Egyptian bas relief exhibited in London at the British Museum. His realistic figuration expresses the resilience of the powerful beast. It is made in colored impastos limited by thick black lines.
This oil on canvas 94 x 105 cm was sold for INR 62 crores worth US $ 7.3M from a lower estimate of INR 5 crores by Saffronart on April 2, 2025, lot 13.
On the same theme, Mehta executed an award winning film in a slaughterhouse in 1970.
Please watch the video shared by the auction house, taking the opportunity of one of the latest works by Mehta in the same sale for offering an overall review of his oeuvre. The 2006 painting was sold for INR 9 crores, lot 15.
An untitled canvas 183 x 152 cm painted by Tyeb Mehta in 2000 was sold for $ 2.3M by Christie's on March 18, 2014, lot 230 and for INR 20 crores by AstaGuru on March 27, 2018, lot 41.
This artwork brings together the two preferred themes of the artist, the bull and the fall.
Disgusted in his youth by the death of oxen in the slaughterhouses, Mehta takes the bovine as the symbol of the vanity of the mankind, from the tortured innocence to the most crazy violence for which the beast takes the features of the demon-buffalo Mahishasura in fight with Durga.
More recent in his art the theme of the fall appears in the late 1980s. A bull or bird is tightly entwined with a human being in a hopeless weightlessness.
In the above example the bovine is fat and strangely peaceful, upturned body and four legs upwards. It has no eyes, as blind as the cut head placed in front of Durga in other compositions. A leg and the tail are interchanged. Two hands coming out from below are the only human attributes in this almost invisible embrace.
In the wide range of behaviors of the bovine, the fate for butchery becomes dominant at the end of the career of Tyeb Mehta. His victimized bulls had fully lost their earlier role as mythical heroes or demons. He worked during three years, from 2005 to 2007, on that theme for his ultimate masterpiece.
This diptych features in each 198 x 152 cm element the silhouette of a beef cut in three falling pieces. The tail is over and the horned head is below. It was so monumental that he could not position them side by side in his small workshop.
The robes of the bulls are a monochromatic deep brown, over a light background. Both elements are quite similar, certainly to assess that all individuality is scraped by the common destiny to the slaughterhouse. In modern life, humans are not better treated. Keeping the bull as a symbol, the artist never forgot the violence of humans on humans of the 1947 partition riots in India when he was 22 years old. Mortality is indeed Mehta's lifelong theme.
This acrylic on canvas was sold for $ 2.8M by Christie's on March 23, 2011, lot 550. and for $ 3.6M (worth INR 29.3 crores) by Saffronart on June 29, 2023, lot 49. Please watch the video shared by Saffronart.
This artwork brings together the two preferred themes of the artist, the bull and the fall.
Disgusted in his youth by the death of oxen in the slaughterhouses, Mehta takes the bovine as the symbol of the vanity of the mankind, from the tortured innocence to the most crazy violence for which the beast takes the features of the demon-buffalo Mahishasura in fight with Durga.
More recent in his art the theme of the fall appears in the late 1980s. A bull or bird is tightly entwined with a human being in a hopeless weightlessness.
In the above example the bovine is fat and strangely peaceful, upturned body and four legs upwards. It has no eyes, as blind as the cut head placed in front of Durga in other compositions. A leg and the tail are interchanged. Two hands coming out from below are the only human attributes in this almost invisible embrace.
In the wide range of behaviors of the bovine, the fate for butchery becomes dominant at the end of the career of Tyeb Mehta. His victimized bulls had fully lost their earlier role as mythical heroes or demons. He worked during three years, from 2005 to 2007, on that theme for his ultimate masterpiece.
This diptych features in each 198 x 152 cm element the silhouette of a beef cut in three falling pieces. The tail is over and the horned head is below. It was so monumental that he could not position them side by side in his small workshop.
The robes of the bulls are a monochromatic deep brown, over a light background. Both elements are quite similar, certainly to assess that all individuality is scraped by the common destiny to the slaughterhouse. In modern life, humans are not better treated. Keeping the bull as a symbol, the artist never forgot the violence of humans on humans of the 1947 partition riots in India when he was 22 years old. Mortality is indeed Mehta's lifelong theme.
This acrylic on canvas was sold for $ 2.8M by Christie's on March 23, 2011, lot 550. and for $ 3.6M (worth INR 29.3 crores) by Saffronart on June 29, 2023, lot 49. Please watch the video shared by Saffronart.
2
1989 Kali
2018 SOLD for US $ 4M (worth INR 26.4 crores) by Saffronart
Tyeb Mehta's painting is minimalist while remaining figurative. The simple lines of the naked bodies border the flat planes in pure pastel-type hues. Beyond the character, woman, man or androgynous, his art invites for a meditation on human condition and meaning of life.
After a serious illness Mehta becomes an artist in residence in 1983 in Santiniketan in Bengal for a period of two years. In the intellectual and cultural environment of this city founded by Rabindranath Tagore his art changes forever when he mixes the Hindu mysticism with his own metaphysical quest. His diaphanous characters become reincarnations of Hindu goddesses whose morphology and powers are unlimited.
The rickshaw has long been for Mehta an abject symbol both by the enslavement of the puller and by the confinement of the seated character. In 1984 the figure in the shadow of the machine is no longer a naked woman but a divinity who exhibits her three legs in sunlight. This oil on canvas 150 x 120 cm was sold for £ 1.97M by Christie's on June 9, 2011.
Mehta begins to express that humanity needs more than ever the return of Durga, the primordial warrior goddess who uses violence to offer peace with her eight to sixteen arms.
The nude female creature sitting on the floor with two heads, two bodies, four arms and two legs is a peaceful Annunciation of Durga. The bull's head in front of her is both an emanation of the slaughterhouse and a memory of Durga's ultimate victory over the buffalo demon Mahishasura.
This oil on canvas 150 x 105 cm also painted in 1984 prefigures the epic themes of the later career of Mehta. It was sold for $ 1.76M by Christie's on March 21, 2012 and for INR 17.8 crores worth US $ 2.96M on August 23, 2017 by AstaGuru, lot 20.
Back in Mumbai he starts a new phase of his career, gradually integrating in bright colors the extreme violence deployed to overcome evil by the two emanations of Parvati, Kali and Durga.
The image of Kali with a blue skin is recognizable by any connoisseur of Hindu mythology. An oil on canvas 170 x 137 cm painted in 1989 was sold by Saffronart for $ 4M worth INR 26.4 crores from a lower estimate of $ 3M on June 14, 2018, lot 33.
The goddess with a Prussian blue skin is standing in an attitude of extreme physical strength, legs apart ready for fight. Another body appears as a defeated victim while a pure white hand reaches her fertile belly, symbol of her role of rebirth after destruction. Kali was so strong that she once trampled the good god Shiva. The scarlet red hanging tongue expresses her shame after this awkwardness.
Tyeb Mehta painted very few Kali figures in full length. He will prefer the epic brawl of Durga with the demon Mahishasura.
After a serious illness Mehta becomes an artist in residence in 1983 in Santiniketan in Bengal for a period of two years. In the intellectual and cultural environment of this city founded by Rabindranath Tagore his art changes forever when he mixes the Hindu mysticism with his own metaphysical quest. His diaphanous characters become reincarnations of Hindu goddesses whose morphology and powers are unlimited.
The rickshaw has long been for Mehta an abject symbol both by the enslavement of the puller and by the confinement of the seated character. In 1984 the figure in the shadow of the machine is no longer a naked woman but a divinity who exhibits her three legs in sunlight. This oil on canvas 150 x 120 cm was sold for £ 1.97M by Christie's on June 9, 2011.
Mehta begins to express that humanity needs more than ever the return of Durga, the primordial warrior goddess who uses violence to offer peace with her eight to sixteen arms.
The nude female creature sitting on the floor with two heads, two bodies, four arms and two legs is a peaceful Annunciation of Durga. The bull's head in front of her is both an emanation of the slaughterhouse and a memory of Durga's ultimate victory over the buffalo demon Mahishasura.
This oil on canvas 150 x 105 cm also painted in 1984 prefigures the epic themes of the later career of Mehta. It was sold for $ 1.76M by Christie's on March 21, 2012 and for INR 17.8 crores worth US $ 2.96M on August 23, 2017 by AstaGuru, lot 20.
Back in Mumbai he starts a new phase of his career, gradually integrating in bright colors the extreme violence deployed to overcome evil by the two emanations of Parvati, Kali and Durga.
The image of Kali with a blue skin is recognizable by any connoisseur of Hindu mythology. An oil on canvas 170 x 137 cm painted in 1989 was sold by Saffronart for $ 4M worth INR 26.4 crores from a lower estimate of $ 3M on June 14, 2018, lot 33.
The goddess with a Prussian blue skin is standing in an attitude of extreme physical strength, legs apart ready for fight. Another body appears as a defeated victim while a pure white hand reaches her fertile belly, symbol of her role of rebirth after destruction. Kali was so strong that she once trampled the good god Shiva. The scarlet red hanging tongue expresses her shame after this awkwardness.
Tyeb Mehta painted very few Kali figures in full length. He will prefer the epic brawl of Durga with the demon Mahishasura.
GAITONDE
See dedicated page :
RAZA
1
1959 Kallisté
2024 SOLD for $ 5.6M by Sotheby's
The son of a forest ranger, Sayed Haider Raza will keep throughout his life the impression of the promise of dawn, a transition between the terror of the night and the bright colors of the day.
Raza arrives in Paris in 1950 to finish his art studies and to immerse himself with modern Western painting. He is very early attracted by the charm of Provence. The landscapes of his early career are not located, mixing the feelings of his native Madhya Pradesh and of Provence with hills, villages and horizons. The explosion of colors in a heavy impasto already dominates the shapes. After van Gogh he expresses the relationship between humans and ground.
Gradually the juxtaposition of colors cancels the line and the atmosphere supersedes the topography. The artist likes these landscapes half in the shade that reveal the varieties of colors of the agrarian plots in contrast with the first or last sun rays on churches and houses. In this early phase of his art the specific structure of the villages nestled in the hills of Provence is easily identifiable.
The trend to abstraction increases in the later 1950s. Kallisté displays vibrant red, yellow and orange as lit at dawn over a background made of the night blue of the sky and the green of the fields. The overall composition reminds a village but no architectural element remains. The title, away from any topographical allusion, is indeed the Greek mythological word for the utmost beauty.
Kallisté, oil on canvas 160 x 128 cm painted in 1959, was sold for $ 5.6M from a lower estimate of $ 2M by Sotheby's on March 18, 2024, lot 117.
In the same year, Raza's marriage after a decade long dating is a mark of an increased maturity.
At the same time Joan Mitchell was similarly inspired by the bright spots of the French countryside.
Raza arrives in Paris in 1950 to finish his art studies and to immerse himself with modern Western painting. He is very early attracted by the charm of Provence. The landscapes of his early career are not located, mixing the feelings of his native Madhya Pradesh and of Provence with hills, villages and horizons. The explosion of colors in a heavy impasto already dominates the shapes. After van Gogh he expresses the relationship between humans and ground.
Gradually the juxtaposition of colors cancels the line and the atmosphere supersedes the topography. The artist likes these landscapes half in the shade that reveal the varieties of colors of the agrarian plots in contrast with the first or last sun rays on churches and houses. In this early phase of his art the specific structure of the villages nestled in the hills of Provence is easily identifiable.
The trend to abstraction increases in the later 1950s. Kallisté displays vibrant red, yellow and orange as lit at dawn over a background made of the night blue of the sky and the green of the fields. The overall composition reminds a village but no architectural element remains. The title, away from any topographical allusion, is indeed the Greek mythological word for the utmost beauty.
Kallisté, oil on canvas 160 x 128 cm painted in 1959, was sold for $ 5.6M from a lower estimate of $ 2M by Sotheby's on March 18, 2024, lot 117.
In the same year, Raza's marriage after a decade long dating is a mark of an increased maturity.
At the same time Joan Mitchell was similarly inspired by the bright spots of the French countryside.
2
1961 Paysage Agreste
2024 SOLD for € 4.7M by Métayer Mermoz
Paysage Agreste was painted in 1961 by Raza in a similar composition as the 1959 Kallisté sold for $ 5.6M by Sotheby's in 2024. Its title meaning rustic landscape confirms the interpretation that the bright abstract spots represent the fields.
This oil on canvas 120 x 200 cm in thick impasto inspired by the hills of Provence had been treasured since the mid 1960s by a couple of collectors who had a residence in the Riviera. It was sold in Antibes from their estate for € 4.7M from a lower estimate of € 400K by Métayer Mermoz on March 17, 2024, lot 31.
This oil on canvas 120 x 200 cm in thick impasto inspired by the hills of Provence had been treasured since the mid 1960s by a couple of collectors who had a residence in the Riviera. It was sold in Antibes from their estate for € 4.7M from a lower estimate of € 400K by Métayer Mermoz on March 17, 2024, lot 31.
3
1972 Tapovan
2018 SOLD for $ 4.45M by Christie's
SH Raza expresses the mystery of the soil. In the early 1970s he dares to address the dangers of the night. On March 21, 2018, Christie's sold for $ 4.45M Tapovan, acrylic on canvas 160 x 189 cm painted in 1972, lot 222.
Tapovan is a Sanskrit word used in yoga, mixing the ideas of meditation and forest. Glowing red areas and bright yellow sparks dot the night scene. A careful inspection suggests the appearance of faces within flames and embers, not without evoking the expressive schematization of his fellow F.N. Souza.
If this interpretation is correct, it is exceptionally rare in Raza's usually dehumanized art and brings Tapovan closer to the primordial questions of the wild tribes and of Gauguin : D'où venons-nous ? Qui sommes-nous ? Où allons-nous ? And also : who are these spirits of the night ?
Raza will soon find an answer to this anxiety. An admirer of Rothko, he will systematize the inclusion of his abstract forms into a structure which in his case begins as a window. He abandons the night but not the ground.
The essential theme of Raza remains forever Earth, which interacts with mankind while transcending the physical and mystical forces. In an earlier phase he had been a landscape painter. The light of dawn playing behind the hills to illuminate the village fascinates him. Gradually the trace of man is no longer useful.
The bright lights of the transition between night and day are not enough to express his philosophical quest. Joining Pollock, his actual subject is the proper life of the soil.
On March 18, 2014, Christie's sold for $ 3.1M La Terre, acrylic on canvas 189 x 189 cm. Painted in 1973, this work did not yet open the great transition of the art of Raza. Rather, it is the ultimate culmination of his landscapes becoming totally abstract while keeping the memory of the sparkling dawn.
Later, Raza discovered how geometry can express the energy. He will forget the night, and his colors become clearer. His quest will more rely upon the principles of Hindu philosophy. The Earth as the unique support of our relationship with the universe remains however implicit in his work. He gives the main role to the essential form, the bindu.
Tapovan is a Sanskrit word used in yoga, mixing the ideas of meditation and forest. Glowing red areas and bright yellow sparks dot the night scene. A careful inspection suggests the appearance of faces within flames and embers, not without evoking the expressive schematization of his fellow F.N. Souza.
If this interpretation is correct, it is exceptionally rare in Raza's usually dehumanized art and brings Tapovan closer to the primordial questions of the wild tribes and of Gauguin : D'où venons-nous ? Qui sommes-nous ? Où allons-nous ? And also : who are these spirits of the night ?
Raza will soon find an answer to this anxiety. An admirer of Rothko, he will systematize the inclusion of his abstract forms into a structure which in his case begins as a window. He abandons the night but not the ground.
The essential theme of Raza remains forever Earth, which interacts with mankind while transcending the physical and mystical forces. In an earlier phase he had been a landscape painter. The light of dawn playing behind the hills to illuminate the village fascinates him. Gradually the trace of man is no longer useful.
The bright lights of the transition between night and day are not enough to express his philosophical quest. Joining Pollock, his actual subject is the proper life of the soil.
On March 18, 2014, Christie's sold for $ 3.1M La Terre, acrylic on canvas 189 x 189 cm. Painted in 1973, this work did not yet open the great transition of the art of Raza. Rather, it is the ultimate culmination of his landscapes becoming totally abstract while keeping the memory of the sparkling dawn.
Later, Raza discovered how geometry can express the energy. He will forget the night, and his colors become clearer. His quest will more rely upon the principles of Hindu philosophy. The Earth as the unique support of our relationship with the universe remains however implicit in his work. He gives the main role to the essential form, the bindu.
4
1985 La Terre
2024 SOLD for £ 3.3M by Bonhams
SH Raza expresses the Earth as the source and support of life. La Terre (a generic French title given by the artist) is one of the guidelines of his entire work.
In the 1970s he makes frequent and long stays in India to seek the source of his emotions. When he reconnects with the beloved forests of his childhood in Madhya Pradesh, his art becomes abstract.
From 1980 he is inspired by the Hindu philosophy in a quest for the creation of the world, beyond the simple balance of the elements. His non-figurative art now incorporates various geometric symbols. The artist compares his paintings to temples, designed to offer to the visitor a mystical ecstasy.
In the 1980s, contrasts of light and topographic details have vanished. Lines that are often parallel form a sort of oblique floor as if the artist saw it fleeing from his feet in a false perspective.
His paintings display the harmony of the warm undertones of the earth in burnt sienna, yellow ocher, red, brown and green.
On June 10, 2010, Christie's sold for £ 2.4M Saurashtra, 200 x 200 cm, painted in 1983 in a range of glowing colors. This geographic title confirms that Raza's mysticism remains attached to the physical beauty of the Indian landscapes.
An example of La Terre executed in same technique and size in 1985 was sold for $ 1.93M by Christie's on September 15, 2010, lot 323, and for £ 3.3M by Bonhams on December 10, 2024, lot 7. It mingles full and empty triangles in various sizes within a perfect overall square format.
La Terre, acrylic on canvas 162 x 178 cm painted in 1986, has a similar inspiration. It is centered with a big black spot that opens a gaping path to the Hindu wisdom. It was sold for $ 1.36M by Saffronart on September 4, 2014, lot 15.
Terra Amata, acrylic on canvas 175 x 150 cm painted in 1984, marked both a step forward in the quest of the roots of mankind and a come back to southern France. One of the earliest evidences of fire control, 400,000 years ago, was found in the so-named archaeological site near Nice. The composition alternates light and dark. It was sold for £ 2.5M by Sotheby's on September 26, 2024, lot 12.
In the 1970s he makes frequent and long stays in India to seek the source of his emotions. When he reconnects with the beloved forests of his childhood in Madhya Pradesh, his art becomes abstract.
From 1980 he is inspired by the Hindu philosophy in a quest for the creation of the world, beyond the simple balance of the elements. His non-figurative art now incorporates various geometric symbols. The artist compares his paintings to temples, designed to offer to the visitor a mystical ecstasy.
In the 1980s, contrasts of light and topographic details have vanished. Lines that are often parallel form a sort of oblique floor as if the artist saw it fleeing from his feet in a false perspective.
His paintings display the harmony of the warm undertones of the earth in burnt sienna, yellow ocher, red, brown and green.
On June 10, 2010, Christie's sold for £ 2.4M Saurashtra, 200 x 200 cm, painted in 1983 in a range of glowing colors. This geographic title confirms that Raza's mysticism remains attached to the physical beauty of the Indian landscapes.
An example of La Terre executed in same technique and size in 1985 was sold for $ 1.93M by Christie's on September 15, 2010, lot 323, and for £ 3.3M by Bonhams on December 10, 2024, lot 7. It mingles full and empty triangles in various sizes within a perfect overall square format.
La Terre, acrylic on canvas 162 x 178 cm painted in 1986, has a similar inspiration. It is centered with a big black spot that opens a gaping path to the Hindu wisdom. It was sold for $ 1.36M by Saffronart on September 4, 2014, lot 15.
Terra Amata, acrylic on canvas 175 x 150 cm painted in 1984, marked both a step forward in the quest of the roots of mankind and a come back to southern France. One of the earliest evidences of fire control, 400,000 years ago, was found in the so-named archaeological site near Nice. The composition alternates light and dark. It was sold for £ 2.5M by Sotheby's on September 26, 2024, lot 12.
