Artworks by Raza, Souza, Mehta fetch record ₹181 cr
NEW DELHI : The artwork of three modern Indian masters, Sayed Haider Raza, Francis Newton Souza and Tyeb Mehta, fetched record bids at Mumbai’s Pundole’s auction house over the weekend. While Raza’s ‘Gestation’ fetched ₹51.75 crore, including commissions, making it the most expensive Indian artwork ever sold at auction, Souza’s work titled ‘Hunger’ sold for ₹34.5 crore, setting a world auction record for the artist. Tyeb Mehta’s sculpture ‘Two Heads’ fetched ₹14.95 crore, gaining the world auction record for a Modern Indian sculpture.
Another Mehta work, an oil on board titled ‘Bull on Rickshaw’, sold for ₹10 crore. The entire auction generated over ₹181 crore for the gallery, including the buyer’s fee. Gestation is an acrylic on canvas, which doubled its expected value.
It is a work from 1989 and came from the Pundole family collection. Oil on canvas Hunger was sold from the collection of the Glenbarra Art Museum and was expected to fetch ₹12-18 crore at the auction. Mehta’s Two Heads, also from the Glenbarra Art Museum, was a sculpture from 1985 in bronze and was expected to fetch anywhere between ₹3 crore and ₹5 crore.
Art critic and curator Uma Nair said South Asia is a growing and extremely important market in terms of asset class expansion. There are second-generation buyers emerging, and younger millionaires are digging deep into their pockets. Dadiba Pundole, the owner of Pundole’s Gallery, said it becomes clearer with each auction that works fresh to the market, with impeccable and historically relevant provenance, command a substantial premium when auctioned.
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