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India's moderns at Christies London

'India's Moderns', the best names in the firmament of contemporary art practices, will be under the hammer at Christies in London, on June 12, 2018. Christie's will host the 24th annual sale of South Asian modern + contemporary art – alongside the arts of India auction – as part of Indian Art London. These sales will offer collectors an exciting opportunity to buy classical Indian art from early Gandharan sculpture to company school painting, all the way through to iconic modern paintings by leading artists Vasudeo S. Gaitonde, Tyeb Mehta, and a never before seen sculpture by Ravinder Reddy.
The South Asian modern + contemporary sale features Untitled (Goddess), a formative example of the artists' now iconic representations of deified Indian women (Lot 46, estimate: £25,000 – 35,000). Bringing together the ancient and the contemporary, and linking temple, kitsch and Pop art, Reddy's larger than life sculptures command attention from the viewer and challenge traditional notions of beauty, femininity, and domesticity.
The South Asian Modern + Contemporary Art sale includes 70 lots and features Tyeb Mehta's (1925-2009) monumental and momentous falling figure, 1992, which was used as the central backdrop for Artists against Communalism (AAC), a twelve-hour cultural sit-in organised by SAHMAT at Shivaji Park in Mumbai (lot 32, , estimate: £1,200,000-1,800,000). At a moment when Mumbai
was on the brink of erupting in communal violence, this painting became the banner under which several artists, musicians, dancers, and poets
gathered together in creative unity. Christie's is privileged to offer this work to discerning international collectors.
Vasudeo S. Gaitonde's Untitled masterpiece from 1986 marks the artist's return to painting large canvases following a serious and debilitating accident two years prior (lot 22, estimate £1,000,000- 1,500,000). The instantly recognisable layered composition of nonobjective bubbling forms, reference conceptual art, abstract expressionism and Zen Buddhism and showcases Gaitonde as a virtuoso at the height of his powers.
There is also a stunning set of Raza works as well as a pair of surreal landscapes by the master thinker and writer F.N.Souza. The beauty of this sale is its gathering of masterpieces that echo the strength and sensibility of India's greatest artists who set the tone for artworks that are now considered blue chip in the auction market. In the appreciation and the recognition of this journey, Christies becomes an important vanguard in the annals of Indian art history.
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