Highlights from Sotheby’s September 2024 Modern & Contemporary South Asian Art Auction: Raza, Pyne, Husain, and More

Charlie Moore, 19 September

Since Christie’s stopped selling in the UK a few years ago, Sotheby’s Modern & Contemporary South Asian auction in September 2024 is one of the only dedicated sales at a major auction house in the UK. This is a pick of a few lots with interesting stories attached.

Lot 12 - Raza, Terra Amata - the headline lot of the sale. It has an amazing history and had been well exhibited over the years. Chester and Davida Herwitz is a slightly magical provenance within this field.  Whilst a great deal of their collection was given to the Essex Peabody Museum in Salem, several sales took place at Sotheby’s in the late 1990s, and this was sold by Sotheby’s in 2000 for $55,000. There will certainly be a field notes dedicated to their collection at some point…

This has a very delicate but beautiful line of gloss paint in the bottom half, which jumps out from the matte surface. Much more impressive in person.

Hard to tell from my terrible iphone photo taken at the preview.

What you can’t see is the massive line behind me of people going to see a performance by FKA Twigs…

The Pompidou Centre’s Raza exhibition in 2023 put the cat amongst the pigeons when it comes to Raza’s market, and prices continue to be strong. There are several other Raza’s in the sale, some of the smaller works are very charming too.

S.H. Raza, Centre Pompidou, 2023

Large scale canvases don’t appear at auction all that often, and when they do, they tend to sell well.  Whether this reaches the top of the estimate is debatable, but it’s certainly a show-stopper.  The estimate is a broad one (£2 – 4 million), odd given that Sotheby’s have scrapped their crafty 1% ‘overhead premium fee’, which disappeared when they changed their premium structures in 2024, but, who cares…

Lot 6 - Ganesh Pyne is a wonderful, mysterious and foreboding painter.  His 60’s canvases are exquisite things.  This also has the Herwitz provenance.  Whilst the estimate is punchy I’m sure it’ll do well.  I did a deep dive into Pyne a few ago for this painting.  That was priced at £200,000 and everyone complained it was too expensive…  I’d bite someone’s hand off to buy that painting back for the same price!  There is an amazing film made by the Indian Film Division looking at the work of Pyne – A painter of eloquent silence.

Lot 18 – Dhruva Mistry, Victoria Square Guardians - II, 1991-93. Dhruva Mistry’s (RA) work isn’t as well known as it should be in the UK, although is present in many public collections here. This is a small-scale version of one of his monumental figures situated in Victoria Square, Birmingham.  It sits next to a pool with one of his nude reclining figures – The River known to the locals as ‘the floozy in the jacuzzi’. 

Dhruva Mistry, The River

Lot 27 - MF Husain, Untitled (Reincarnation): Coming so soon after the record-breaking work by Husain sold by Sotheby’s in March 2023, this is another large-scale depiction of bulls dating to the late 1950s. The other work was on the cover of Bartholomew and Kapur famous 1971 monograph on Husain, and it appears that sale has dragged this out of the woodwork. It came originally from Galerie du Grand-Mezel in Switzerland, who sold several works by Husain in the 1970s. This is a major picture at a good estimate and on a good day, may knock on the door of that record.  

Lot 40 is a big, late oil by Bhupen Khakhar.  Lots of negative space and a very wide estimate.  The air is thin up there, but these don’t grow on trees.  The dentist looks almost like a self-portrait..?  It’ll sell but perhaps won’t produce fireworks.

Left: Portrait of Bhupen Khakhar taken by Anthony Stokes. Courtesy Grosvenor Gallery

Lot 45 - I’m a big fan of Ahmed Parvez and in my opinion his work is undervalued.  He had success in London in the 1950s and 60s, showing consistently with good galleries and in good company. For the artist this is a decent size painting and therefore fairly rare.  He struggled for money, rarely able to buy large canvases, so paintings like this are thin on the ground.  It won’t go bonkers but should really be selling for above the top estimate.

What would I have at home:  Raza, Terre Chaud.  A lovely picture, amazing colours, inspired by his experience of colour field artist’s work whilst teaching at the University of California, Berkely in 1962. They also reference miniature traditional Rajasthani miniature paintings.

‘Rothko’s work opened up lots of interesting associations for me… It was so different from the insipid realism of the European School. It was like a door that opened to another interior vision.’ - Raza

Right: A Nobleman and His Devoted Wife Seated in the Forest, circa 1685 (The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York)

Lot 43 - Also, this very charming little work by Shemza.  Delightful…

Sold prices…

6 - Pyne: £360,000

12 - Raza: £ 2.52 million

18 - Dhruva Mistry: £78,000 (record price)

27 - Husain: £2.4 million (record price)

40 - Bhupen: Unsold (ah...)

45 - Parvez: £24,000 (cheap)

My picks:

25 - Raza: £240,000

43 - Shemza: £36,000