Two Raza paintings emerge from the shadows to fetch an eye popping ₹86 crore

livemint.com:

NEW DELHI : Two large paintings by Sayed Haider Raza sold at two separate auctions last week for a cumulative value of ₹86 crore—both artworks emerging out of the shadows to turn the spotlight on the artist during his centenary celebrations. Raza’s 1959 painting titled Kallisté, which is Greek for ‘most beautiful’, sold on March 19 at the iconic auction house Sotheby’s for $5,619,900, or ₹46 crore. Another artwork, Paysage Agreste, which was presented at the Métayer-Mermoz auction house in Antibes, France on 17 March, sold for €4.75 million, or ₹40 crore, including the buyer's premium.

This large canvas (120 × 200 cm), which had been acquired in the 1960s and remained in the same collection since, represents a major rediscovery for Raza’s body of work. Raza’s works have had other multi-crore buys in the past six months. Last year, at a Pundole’s auction, Raza’s Gestation fetched ₹51.75 crore, including commissions, making it the most expensive Indian artwork ever sold at an auction, before it was upstaged by an Amrita Sher-Gil work, The Story Teller, which sold at ₹61.8 crore.

Raza, born in 1922, was a highly celebrated Indian artist known for his abstract paintings that often incorporated the bindu, a central dot with deep significance in Indian culture. The buyer of Paysage Agreste is a private Indian collector. Dating from 1961, the painting marks a crucial period in Raza’s career, when figurative landscapes were transformed into powerfully coloured abstract works, Métayer-Mermoz said in a statement.