LONDON.- Bonhams' Modern and Contemporary South Asian Art sale at 101 New Bond Street on 5 October offers 33 exceptional works from Indian and South Asian masters including M F Husain, FN Souza, Tyeb Mehta and Ismail Gulgee.

The star lot is a poignant and important early work by one of the most successful Indian artist in the world, Tyeb Mehta (1925-2009). Never before offered at auction, the painting, Untitled (Figure), 1959, comes from a private UK collection and is estimated at between £300,000 – 500,000. As with Mehta’s other early pictures it shows the influence of the Parisian school in its heavy use of impasto as well as displaying the cinematic quality which characterised so much of his work throughout his long career.

Untitled by M F Husain (1915 – 2011) is estimated at between £120,000-150,000. Husain once said, “When I make nude paintings of women you will find that there is no nakedness in this nudity.” The figure in this painting, although barebreasted and with rounded belly, is distinctly devoid of eroticism, the nudity used as a way to strip the figure down its most bare and vulnerable.

Other highlights include F.N.Souza’s (1924-2002) Untitled (Head) estimated between £40,000 and £50,000, and Horses, an important work by the seminal Pakistani artist, Ismail Gulgee, (1926-2007) estimated between £70,000 90,000. Lapis Lazuli mosaic works such as this are rarely seen at auction and the piece entitled Polo Players which Bonhams sold in 2008 was the first time in over a decade that a lapis lazuli work had been offered at auction.

Tahmina Ghaffar, specialist for Modern and Contemporary South Asian art, commented: “Bonhams October sale caps a season of international art auctions which has demonstrated beyond doubt that enthusiasm for Indian and South Asian art is now a global phenomenon. The depth and quality of the paintings we have assembled offer collectors the opportunity to acquire works by the greatest names of the 20th century. We are expecting a lot of interest.”