The
Amaya Collection
Sotheby's
New York
7 PM, March 19, 2013
Sale 8975

Lord
Poltimore, Sotheby's deputy chairman, Europe, auctions Lot 7, "The
Crucifixion," by Francis Newton Souza, circa 1963, oil on canvas, 69
7/8 by 52 inches
All photographs copyright
Michele Leight, 2013
By
Michele Leight
On 19 March, 2013, Sotheby’s New
York presented the Amaya Collection, the first international Evening
Sale of Indian Art, a memorable event that featured important
works of art by Modernist masters and contemporary pieces by
artists whose names are now recognized across the world, such as Subodh
Gupta, Ravinder Reddy, Anjolie Menon, Bharti Kher, Rina Bannerjee and
Rashid Rana. It was also the first single-owner sale in this category
to be held at Sotheby’s in over a decade. The consignor was the
collector and author, Amrita Jhaveri, whose collection spans important
Modern & Contemporary Indian Art produced during the second
half of the 20th Century to the early 21st. The sale offered gems by
Maqbool Fida Husain, Tyeb Mehta, Francis Newton Souza, Sayed Haider
Raza, and Vasudeo Gaitonde, and recent works by Subodh Gupta, Rashid
Rana and Bharti Kher which have been exhibited
internationally. The auction of 43 lots was estimated at $5
-$7 million, and the works of art were exhibited in New Delhi, London
and New York in advance of the sale.
Proceeds from the sale will
underwrite a project space and lecture room at Khoj International
Artists’ Association in New Delhi. Amrita Jhaveri is also
supporting museum initiatives in the collecting area of South Asian art
by donating a work by sculptor Mrinalini Mukherjee to the Tate Modern: “This sale is a
celebration of the very best of Indian art. The impulse to share these
rare works with other collectors while continuing on the journey
remains strong. Going forward I would also like to enable the work done
at Khoj and support public exhibitions and collections of Indian art
abroad," commented Amrita
Jhaveri.
Yamini Mehta, Senior Director,
Sotheby’s International Head of Modern and Contemporary South Asian
Art, London and New York said: “The Amaya Collection is one of the
finest single owner collections of Indian Art to come to the market.
Amrita Jhaveri has spent more than two decades putting together, with a
passionate and scholarly approach, a stellar collection, which includes
numerous works by Modern Indian masters. Her remarkable eye has also
enabled her to seek out some exceptional works by younger Contemporary
artists. I am thrilled, in this my first sale at Sotheby’s, to be
offering such a well curated and diverse selection of these important
works.”

Lot 12, "Untitled," by Vasudeo
S. Gaitonde, , 1962, oil on canvas, was the top lot of the
sale, achieving $965,000, with a pre-sale estimate $600,000
to 800,000), shown above
with Prianka Mathew, Sotheby's Head of Sales, Modern and Contemporary
South Asian Art.
The auctioneer for
this memorable evening sale was Lord Poltimore, Sotheby's
Deputy Chairman, Europe, whose sense of humor was a tonic that infused
even the harried brigade fielding phones as bidders vied for
their favourite lots. There was laughter, and serious
bidding, throughout the evening. Illustrated above with
Prianka Mathew,
Head of Sales, Modern & Contemporary South Asian Art, is Lot 12, "Untitled," a
gorgeous rothko-esque canvas by Vasudeo Gaitonde, circa 1962, the star
lot of the evening that
achieved $965,000, with a pre-sale estimate of $600,000 to
$800,000. Sotheby's catalogue for this sale notes:
"Gaitonde produced very few
canvases during his lifetime, partly due to his meticulous approach, He
held strong beliefs in his identity as a painter and isolated himself
from others, removing distractions that would interfere with his goal
in achieving the purest form of expression through light , colour, and
texture. When Richard Bartholomew reviewed Gaitonde's work in 1959 he
described him as a 'quiet man and a painter of the quiet reaches of the
imagination.' (Dnyaneshwar Nadkarni, Gaitonde, Lalit Kala Akedemi,
1983). All of Gaitonde's work from this period contains an inherent
spirituality, and some have identified it as an expression of the Inner
Self. When viewing his painting one is instantly struck by its
contemplative and meditative quality. His work generates a feeling of
infinity, representing the hidden depths of the world and mankind."
Illustrated at the top
of this review is Lot 7, "The Crucifixion," an exceptionally fine oil
on canvas by Francis Newton Souza, that streaked past its high estimate
of $200,000 to $300,000,
achieving $557,000.
Sotheby's catalogue for this sale notes that the artist was heavily
influenced by Pablo Picasso, Francis Bacon and Graham Sutherland - the
last two were his contemporaries - and that "Francis Newton Souza's
ambivalence with religion is represented in this expressionistic
painting. In the artist's own words, 'For me the all pervading and
crucial themes of the predicament of man are those of Religion and Sex'
(1964 interview with Mervyn Levy). Souza has depicted the martyred
Christ in a number of his canvases but the current painting titled
Crucifixion is one of his most evocative portrayals of the
subject...His first major work on the subject was a large scale
painting, (approximately 6 by 4 ft) produced in 1959, that is now part
of the Tate Gallery's permanent collection." It is a dramatic work,
illustrated in the catalogue, in the Collection of Tate Britain.

Lord Poltimore takes bids for Lot 25, "Rajasthan
I," by Syed Haider Raza, 1983, acrylic on canvas, 60 inches
square
Like
MF Husain and FN Souza, Syed Haider Raza was a member of the
Progressive Artists Group. In an essay in Sotheby's catalogue for this
sale entiled "Mapping Modernism: Post Independence Art in
India,"Yashodhara Dalmia writes: "They
stepped into the difficult terrain where Folk Art, The Miniature
Schools, The Company School and an eclectic mixture of Western
naturalism existed alongside each other, and from this medley of styles
they were to create their own mode of expression." He describes Souza's
influence in particular: "The arch rebel Francis Newton Souza who had
founded the Group was capable of immense distortions and a frank
exposure of the human body which formed the paradigmatic structure of a
forceful modernism. The inherent freedom that Souza exrcised made him
paint figures of authority, particularly those of the officials of the
Catholic church with a great deal of irreverence."
The painting above, Lot 25, "Rajasthan I," by Syed Haider Raza, is
referenced by Dalmia in the same essay: "In the elemental reds, yellows
and greens which whirl like passionate dervishes in 'Rajasthan I' in
The Amaya collection, we have forms of concentrated energy which create
a throbbing incandescence. The frames of deep earth colours
which contain this endless swirling are in a constant pulsting
movement..."
Lot 25, "Rajasthan I," had an estimate of $600,000 to $800,000 and sold for $809,000.

Lot
15, The Black Devi, by Manjit Bawa, 2002, oil on canvas, 63 by 67 1/2
inches
Long
a fan of Manjit Bawa's paintings, this reviewer was heartened to see
the exquisite canvas illustrated above do so well in a sale loaded with
highly collectible works of art. Lot 15, "The Black Devi," references
the goddess Durga, a warrior goddess, who possesses both beauty and
strength, "her multiple arms and hands supporting weapons and
supporting mudras.Durga
Mahishasura is a representation of good over evil and the embodiment of
the Devi's strength" (Sotheby's catalogue for this sale)
Lot
15 had an estimate of $150,000 to $200,000, and sold for $389,000.

Lot 3, "Puppet Dancers," by Maqbool Fida Husain, 1963, oil on
canvas, 31 1/2 by 51 1/4 inches
One
of the most fascinating influences of MF Husain's prolific career was
his love of toys that began in the early 1940s when he worked at the
Fantasy furniture company in Mumbai. Lot 3, "The Puppet Dancers"
provided a perfect vehicle for the artist to revisit a theme close to
his heart, laced with the extraordinarily sophisticated Cubist inspired
composition illustrated here. Rendered in a mouthwatering tapestry of
earthtone colors 'The Puppet Dancers' evoke the Indian landscape and
the small towns and villages where hand-made wood toys and puppets
still provide entertainment and joy. This beautiful painting was
exhibited at Asia House in London in 2006, in "M.F. Husain: Early
Masterpieces 1950s-70s."
Lot 3 had an estimate of $200,000 to $300,000, and sold for $293,000.

Lot 22,
"Festival," by Ganesh Pyne, 1969, tempera on canvas laid down on board,
21 5/8 by 26 inches
Exquisitely
rendered in the delicate medium of tempera, Ganesh Pyne's "Festival"
features the Bengali folk goddess of snakes and fertility emerging from
the water flanked by a naga and flames. The artist's fascination with
popular local deities often become a subject in his work, and stems
from a childhood association with a shrine dedicatedto the Bengali
saint Chitanya in front of his family home in Calcutta: "The morbid
subject matter of many of his paintings was influenced by his own
tragic circumstances. His father died when he was nine years old and
this was shortly followed by the Calcutta riots of 1946. During the
riots, Pyne witnessed looting, arson and murder amid the streets of
Calcutta. Pyne and his family were evacuated from their home and the
beloved Chitanya shrine opposite was destroyed. Pyne recalls seeing a
cart full of bodies, among them a dead woman from a high caste, naked,
her skin grey and throat gashed with blood, her gold necklace
still glistening. 'I was shaken by the sight. Since then I have been
obsessed with the dark world.' (Saffronart, 2005, interview with the
artist). The death of his grandmother in 1965 brought a further somber
tone to his works. At the start of the 1970s, Pyne witnessed more
suffering during the Pakistan and Bangladesh wars. His primary concerns
then became depicting figures that were on the borders of society,
migrants and social outcasts that increasingly populated the streets
around him" (Sotheby's catalogue for this sale)
Lot 22 has an estimate of $30,000 to $50,000. It sold for $125,000.

Lot
17, "Family," 1997, by G. Ravinder Reddy,
painted and gilded polyester-resin fiberglass
Left, Lot 43, "Actions To See The World Better," by Bharti Kher, bindis
on composite aluminium panel, 48 inches square; Right: Lot 19, "From My
Photo Album - II," by Abir Karmakar, 2005, oil on canvas, 72 by 96 1/2 inches
Bharti Kher and
Ravinder Reddy are well known internationally, and both have used
typically Indian themes or motifs in their artistic practice. Kher's
bindis morph into Op Art like constellations of mouthwatering
complexity and beauty, and often include meanings embedded in ancient
Hindu mythology and India's contemporary aspirations: "Bindi is derived
from bindu, the Sanskrit word for a dot or a point. In India it is
applied to the forehead and associated with the Hindu symbol of the
third eye. Red colored bindis are customarily worn by married women,
but it has now transformed into a fashion accessory worn by unmarried
girls and women of any religion..." and "..."Kher uses the bindis as a
means of transforming objects and surfaces through a technically
time-consuming and contemplative process of slow application that
becomes almost ritualistic and theatrical in its method of
construction. Through this process, she is essentially re-examining
their meaning and referencing issues of subjugation, female
empowerment, femininity and sexuality. 'While Kher's art is unafraid to
confront complex human concerns - among them gender, the post-colonial
legacy, and the possibility of spritual experience in an increasingly
materialistic world - it often does so with gleefully macabre humour,
taking delight in its own formal excesses.'" (Tom Morton, 'Strange
Hearts and Stranger Eyes,', Bharti Kher, London, 2012, p.157)
Lot 43, "Actions To See the World Better," has an estimate of $50,000
to $70,000.
Illustrated on the right of Kher's bindi constellation is Lot 19, "From
My Photo Album," by Abir Karmakar, a beautifully executed photo-realist
painting that references Edouard Manet's well-known masterpiece "A Bar
at the Folies Bergere.
Lot 19 has an estimate of $10,000 to $15,000. It sold for $8,125.
Drawing upon classical Indian sculptural prototypes such as
the famous Chola bronzes - featuring several figures - Ravinder Reddy's
"Family" is also painted blue, a color sssociated with the Hindu god
Krishna. Lot 17, "Family," is both shocking and familiar: "Reddy's
hybrid sculptures combine the contemporary and the traditional, the
secular and the religious, raising questions of desire and worship. His
representation of the human body highlights issues of social, sexual,
religious and cultural identity, These works can be seen as a comment
on the dilution of Indian culture through globalization. 'Suspended
between the urban and the rural Reddy's sculpture is a cultural hybrid.
This interplay between societies has been of interest to Reddy;
combining the stimulus of the old and the new he turns an iconic object
into one of satirical social commentary - the classical form of Indian
sculpture overlaid with the visual ethic of popular culture, becomes
voluptuous, and accessible" (DaimlerChrysler Contemporary,
Private/Corporate IV: Works from the Lekha and Anupam Poddar, New
Delhi, and DaimlerChrysler Collections: A Dialogue, Berlin, 2007, p.
52).
Lot 17, "Family," has an estimate of $200,000 to $300,000. It sold for $341,000.

Lot 32, "Ode
To The Spinal Cord, " by Jitish Kallat, 2000, mixed media on canvas, 52
by 68 inches

Lot 39,
"Saat Samundar Paar V," by Subodh Gupta, 2003, oil on canvas, 65 by 89
inches
There is nothing
that evokes India quite like a train laden with people, and Lot 32,
"Ode To The Spinal Cord," by Jitish Kallat does just that. One can
almost hear the screeching wheels, sense the teeming mass of
human beings packed together on board, and feel the frenzy that makes
commuting a challenge for those that must ride the rails into
Mumbai daily. The grit and grime of a teeming urban metropolis is
palpable in this atmospheric work, as is the marginalized status of the
citizens it portrays. It is visual depiction of the tightrope of
survival for an aspiring but unequal strata of society.
Lot 32 has an estimate of $50,000 to $70,000. It sold for $137,000, well above
its high estimate.
Indians on the move is also a frequent subject of Subodh Gupta. Lot 39,
"Saat Samundar Paar V," is from a suite of works that depict people in
transit, usually at airports and railway stations, as well as migrant
workers with their distinctive luggage - rarely a conventional
suitcase, because they cannot afford them. The boxes and bundles, bound
with any available rope or plastic twine, can be seen at international
airports across the globe, symbolizing the ephemeral nature of their
owners lives as they pursue employment, while still maintaining strong
ties to their country: "He glorifies the lovingly swaddled bundles,
making them central to his paintings." (Meera Menezes, 'Made In India,'
ART India Magazine, Volume X, Issue III, Quarter III, 2005, p. 72,
Sotheby's catalogue for this sale). The "Ambassador" car is also
something of a treasure, highly prized by those that appreciate its
anachronistic presence in a new and flourishing India, with its
abundance of shiny new cars.
It is no coincidence that Gupta portrays the plight of migrant workers
so effectively. He was born and raised in Bihar, one of the poorest and
most marginalized states in India, with a correspondingly poignant
history of social injustice - often involving trafficking in humans for
labor and the sex trade - and corruption. Like many of his subjects,
the artist has migrated from rural Bihar to the metropolis of Delhi to
pursue his career.
Lot 39, "Saat Samundar Paar V" sold
for $185,000, with a pre-sale estimate of $120,000 to
180,000.

Lot 41,
"Red Carpet - 2" by Rashid Rana, Digital c-print mounted on Diasec, 60
by 72 inches
Several artists
whose work features in this sale - and on the international arts scene
- are affiliated with KHOJ, as explained in "Incubating Innovation,
KHOJ," by Malcolm Cossons, in Sotheby's catalogue for this sale. The
director of KHOJ, Pooja Sood, is also one of the founding members:
"As the Indian contemporary art market continues to flourish, an
organization like KHOJ is vitally important to foster emerging artists
and ecourage communication between Indian and international artists,
both new and established - as Sood notes 'KHOJ is not only about
emerging artists but also about emerging practices, both of which need
to be not only critiqued, but also supported.' Many of the artists who
have participated in KHOJ projects in the past have gone on to enjoy
international recognition - for instance, Subodh Gupta, Bharti, Kher,
Jitish Kallat and Rashid Rana. Sood relishes the fact that these
artists are now receiving critical acclaim: 'we have had several
artists who are now big stars and to have been privy to their practice
at close quarters is heartening, I think Subodh Gupta, for example, is
amazing - I have no qualms about saying that. He pushes himself and
manages to surprise!'"
The well-known Pakistani artist Rashid Rana's magnificent Persian
"carpet" is meticulously - digitally - tooled together from a mosaic of
gruesome photographs taken in a slaughterhouse. This contemporary
"memento mori" contrasts violence and blood with luxurious rugs: "The
opposition between beauty and death intergral to Rana's Red Carpet
series has been explored by generations of artists, and sometimes
overturned. The Symbolists, at their most decadent, replaced truth with
death in (John) Keats' paradigm, asserting that beauty was death, and
death, beauty. In our own time, we have grown familiar with that
dazzling marker of our last end. Damien Hirst's diamond skull, produced
in the same year as the first Red Carpet." (Sotheby's catalogue for
this sale)
Lot 41 "Red Carpet," has an estimate of $80,000 to $120,000. It sold for $161,000, well
above its high estimate.

Lot 21, "May Look Closer Than They Appear," by Anant Joshi, 2007, Mixed
media, collage and gold leaf on canvas

Detail of
Lot 21

Lot 20,
""Yogini; Lady In Moonlight; Lakshmi," by Pushpamala N. and Clare Arni,
Chromogenic and gelatin silver prints, Edition 3 of 20
The collector of
this amazing array of Indian art seems unaffected by trends and power
labels, even though many of the works on offer were - and still are -
created by India's most celebrated and successful artists.
When contemporary works by Anant Joshi and stylized
photographs by Pushpamala N and Clare Arni, (illustrated above), rub
shoulders with Husains and Razas, it is clear that the collector is
focused on the future of Indian art and its overall significance in a
wider - universal - context, rather than a single Indian artist or
"movement."
Lot 21, "May Look Closer Than They Appear," by Anant Joshi has an
estimate of $20,000 to $30,000. It
sold for $60,000.
Lot 20, "Yogini; Lady In Moonlight; Lakshmi" by Pushpamala N. and Clare
Arni has an estimate of $8,000 to $12,000. It sold for $11,125.
In "The Amaya Collection, An Eclectic View on Modern and
Contemporary Indian Art," in Sotheby's catalogue for this sale, Girish
Shahane writes: "Since her move to London a few years ago, she (Amrita
Jhaveri) has grown more interested in the young contemporaries,
particularly those from the Indian diaspora. With this change of focus,
the idea of representativeness has receded in relevance, because art
practices are now so diverse as to preclude any notion of a center or
spine; and because, when we consider what is being created in the
present moment, we do so without the historical distance vital to
separating important from superfluous, necessary from
tangential. Partly to accommodate the shift in perspective, she is
de-acquisitioning through Sotheby's a portion of her remarkable
collection. She has retained enough by each artist to ensure she
continues to possess works reflecting watershed moments in modern
Indian art history. At the same time, she is letting go of some of the
very best pieces, which cannot have been easy...What to keep and what
to offer in a sale demands a series of tough decisions on the owners
part. Shortly before his death, I interviewed Chester Herwitz, the most
prominent collector of Indian art for three decades until the late
1990s. He spoke of the two single-person auctions of his paintings by
Sotheby's in 1995 and 1996, pioneering efforts that count as
forerunners of the Amaya Evening Sale. He called the auctions
wrenching, almost unbearable, because so much of the art he loved was
dispersed as a result. But he realized the quality of the entire
collection would, to a degree, be judged by what was on offer, and so
had to part with some of his best-loved paintings. Amrita was among
those who bought substantially from the Herwitz collection, both
through auctions and private sales. A dozen paintings that were once
owned by Chester and Davida Herwitz feature in the Amaya Collection,
among them Sudhir Patwardhan's 'Keralite,' (lot 30) which was offered
in the 1996 Sotheby's sale, and which Chester Herwitz singled out as
one of the canvases he found most difficult to let go."

Lot 30, "Keralite," by Sudhir Patwardhan, 1992, Oil on canvas
No pain, no gain, is how it seems to go. When beloved
paintings from important collections are dispersed, however, they can
become the seeds of new directions and focus, which is always
a good thing for art. Fresh air must blow into the hallowed corridors
of the past, encouraging a new generation to bring their histories,
angst and magic into the arena. Without this, art becomes a stagnant
pool. Amrita Jhaveri's collecting reflects an understanding that art -
like life - changes because of those that are committed to making it,
who will inevitably chart their own course and not be dictated to by
the past. Lot 30 "Keralite," by Sudhir Patwardhan has an estimate of
$60,000 to $80,000. It
sold for $62,500.

Lot 40, "The Strain of Fruit
Eaten Twice Produced More and More," by Rina Bannerjee, 2006, mixed
media on paper, 54 5/8 by 42 7/8 inches
Rina
Bannerjee says: "I could never be a Minimalist artist: I am interested
in corrupting fine art with everything I wish for. I want adventure and
to feel the same sense of command that I imagine an explorer or a
scientist would - like a visitor trespassing. My art is about the value
of our desire to travel, I am not interested in being wrapped around
any country or community so tightly that it cannot allow this; the need
to travel is psychological, intellectual, and emotional. Freedom is the
most expensive commodity; nature the most dangerous beauty. My work
examines both. My art depicts a delicate world that is also aggressive,
tangled, mainpulated, fragile, and very, very dense." (as told to Zehra
Jumabhoy, 'Rina Bannerjee', ArtForum.com, accessed from
http://artforum.com/words/id=28485 on 20th January 2013)
The painting illustrated above
has been inspired by a life in which imagination
won the day. After studying material science engineering, Rina
Bannerjee followed her heart and changed lanes, completing an MA in
painting at Yale. Born in India, but living most of her adult life in
the United States, her sophisticated use of exotic colors and rich
textures, East/West iconography, and fascination with mythical and
imaginary worlds inspired by folk and fairy tales stem from this mix of
cultural traditions that have universal appeal.
Lot 40, "The Strain of Fruit Eaten
Twice Produced More and More," has an estimate of $15,000 to $20,000. It sold for $27,500.

Lord
Poltimore with Lot 35, "Man XII," By Rameshwar Brootha, 1983, oil on
canvas, 50 by 69 3/4 inches
Illustrated
above with a smiling Lord Poltimore is Rameshwar Brootha's "Man
XII," from the Chester and Avida Herwitz Family Collection, a
typically brooding, sinister and compelling work that depicts the male
figure - usually the artist's own - rendered in oil that is
meticulously scratched away with linseed oil. The result resembles a
gigantic etching, all the more amazing because the artist works
directly on canvas, without any preparatory sketches. In an essay in
Sotheby's catalogue for this sale entitled "Moving Past Illusion,
Amrita Jhaveri's Collecting Odyssey," Deepanjana Pal writes: "For those
familiar with modern Indian history, many of the works carry wthin them
markers in invisible ink of the social and political climate of the
times in which they were created. Take Rameshwar Brootha's 'Man XII',
for example, in which a wraith of a bound man is shown with a mask over
his lips. He has been turned into a mute, haunting creature and it is
no accident that this work is dated 1983, a few years after the period
of Emgegency (which civil liberties were suspended briefly)."
This painting resonates today when thousands across the world are
silenced by an absence of what we call civil liberties in the "free"
world. Lot 35 has an estimate of $90.000 to 150,000. It sold for $106,250.
For
a complete change of pace, Lot 38, "Dominus Aerius 2," by Tukral and
Tagra, features an affluent Delhi villa sprouting flora, an
avertisement disguised as art, presented in "a large billboard styled
image that comments on consumerism and the commoditization of art. The
bungalow featured in the painting is depicted like an advertisement
from a real estate catalogue. The foliage and flowers that frame the
home give nod to the rosy way in which homes are styled for consumer
use. The language of real estate advertising is applied to this
painting, and the effect is to mischievously make one conscious of the
collusion between the art market and the retail industry...Their local
environment serves as the inspiration for this work. New Delhi and
especially Gurgaon, the area where they live, is known for its
opulence. Houses are enormous and built in a very haphazard
and eclectic style. These bungalows and country houses are symbols of
wealth and status while remaining aspirational to everyone else with
desires for a better life."
Lot 38 has an estimate of $40,000 to $60,000. It sold for $30,000.

Lot
38, "Dominus Aerius 2," by Tukral and Tagra, Oil and acrylic on canvas
The Amaya Collection brought a
total of $6,694,875, just shy of its pre-sale high estimate of $7
million. Beautiful "Untitled" from Vasudeo S. Gaitonde, sold
for $965,000, above a high estimate of $800,000. Strong prices were
achieved for Sayed Haider Raza’s "Rajasthanbrought a total of $6,694,875, just
shy of its pre-sale high estimate of $7 million. Beautiful "Untitled"
from Vasudeo S. Gaitonde, sold for $965,000, above a high
estimate of $800,000. Strong prices were achieved for Sayed Haider
Raza’s "Rajasthan I" from
1983, which brought $809,000, while multiple bidders drove Francis
Newton Souza’s "The Crucifixion" to achieve $557,000 (est.
$200/300,000). Additional highlights included Manjit Bawa’s "The Black
Devi," which sold for $389,000, and Bhupen
Khakhar’s 1988 "Satsang," which
fetched $341,000 – both above their pre-sale high estimates.
Another painting that exceeded its high estimate ($40,000 to
$60,000) was Jogen Chaudury's "Ganesh With Crown," (Lot 16),
which sold for $118,750.
Four artists records were set
during this sale. "Mask, Icon, Mount, Mascot" by K.G.Subramaniam sold
for $185,000; "May Look Closer Than They Appear" by Anant Joshi sold
for $60,000; "Untitled (Twisted Rope)," by Ranbir Kaleka sold
for $32,500, and Rina Bannerjee's "The Strain of Fruit Eaten
Twice Produced More and More" sold for $27,500.
Yamini Mehta, Senior Director, Sotheby’s
International Head of Modern and Contemporary South Asian Art, London
and New York, said:“It
has been a privilege for Sotheby’s to handle this offering of works
from The
Amaya Collection. Tonight’s strong results, which reached the high
estimate, are a testament to Amrita’s well-honed eye and decades of
experience in the field of modern and contemporary Indian art. And with
60% of the lots achieving prices above their high estimates, there is
no question that collectors are committed to pursuing works of the
highest quality. I am delighted to have been a part of this landmark
sale which was my first at Sotheby’s.”
Priyanka Mathew, Head of Sales,
Modern & Contemporary South Asian Art, commented: “We have been especially pleased
and encouraged to see a number of new buyers enter the market this
season. Tonight, their presence contributed to strong prices for works
by both the modern and contemporary artists in The Amaya Collection.
The resurgence of interest in contemporary works is particularly
exciting for this market, with records set tonight for artists
including Banerjee and Joshi. Bidding was truly global, with equal
participation coming from Asia, North America and Europe, demonstrating
strength in the Indian market.”
In "Incubating Innovation" in
Sotheby's catalogue for this sale, Malcolm Cossons writes:
"Responsible
for launching the careers of some on India's most celebrated
contemporary artists, KHOJ International Artist's Association will
benefit from the sale of The Amaya Collection, allowing it to develop
its ground-breaking work."
It was a rare treat to be
present at this very special evening sale in New York that will help
support the arts in India - and internationally - for years to come.