LONDON.- Sotheby’s auction of Modern and Contemporary South Asian Art in London will be held on 18 October 2016, following a highly successful sale in New York in March. This 78 lot auction includes a truly impressive range of paintings and sculpture by Modern masters, from storied collections with stellar provenances.

Leading the sale is a luminescent and meditative painting by Vasudeo S. Gaitonde from 1973. Further highlights include a moving, large-scale painting of The Deposition by Francis Newton Souza and important works from wider South Asia by Ali Imam Raza, one of the founders of Modernism in Pakistan, alongside works by Abdur Rahman Chughtai and Sadequain. This sale opens with a collection of never-before-seen Indian works from the Swiss collection of Herr Dölf Amacker. Herr Amacker lived in India from 1947 to 1961; his 21 lot collection is a veritable showcase of modern Indian art history including works by Ganesh Pyne, K.H. Ara, Mohan Samant and early works by Maqbool Fida Hussein.

Yamini Mehta, International Head of South Asian Art, said: “This sale is characterised by the freshness to market of these wonderful paintings, which have been sourced from across the globe – from Brazil, to Spain, to Switzerland. The range in pricepoints across the sale provides an appealing prospect to both seasoned collectors and those who are newer to collecting. I’m hugely excited to include one of the most moving works by Souza that I’ve had the pleasure to handle.”

Highlights:
VASUDEO S. GAITONDE (1924-2001) UNTITLED, 1973 Estimate: £900,000-1,400,000
A recent monograph on Gaitonde, launched at Sotheby’s in New York in 2016, pictured the artist standing beside this very work during his seminal solo exhibition held at the Taj Art Gallery in 1974. Painted at the peak of his career in New Delhi, Untitled belongs to an important period in Gaitonde’s oeuvre, marked by a notable shift from horizontal canvases to a vertical format. Untitled is a testament to Gaitonde's painstaking process; it demonstrates the artist’s mastery of colour, light and form which enables him in this work to achieve a refined equilibrium between the real and the ephemeral.

FRANCIS NEWTON SOUZA (1924-2002) THE DEPOSITION,1963 Estimate: £400,000-600,000
Painted in 1963, this monumental canvas, The Deposition is the most celebrated work from Souza’s exhibition The Human and the Divine Predicament, held at London’s Grosvenor Gallery in 1964. Following the biblical account, the artist depicts the scene of Christ’s burial. Souza adopted his composition from Titian’s Entombment of Christ, constructing the canvas around the horizontal line of Christ’s body. While Titian’s palette adds a twilight glow to the scene, Souza’s is by contrast stark and bold, with his use of white and grey hues. The Deposition is hugely significant in the history of art because it marks a radical departure from the tradition of Western iconography. The artist took a complex and revered theme, and allowed it to be reborn in his own expressionistic vernacular.

ABDUR RAHMAN CHUGHTAI (1894-1975) UNTITLED (WOMAN AT HER TOILETTE), 1970 Estimate: £50,000- 70,000
Offered from the collection of one of Pakistan’s most prominent families, Abdur Rahman Chughtai's Untitled (Woman at her Toilette) is a stellar example of Pakistani modernism. One of the most distinguished Pakistani artists of the 20th century, Chughtai was born into a family of court painters, committed to depicting art with indigenous themes. The delicate line at work in this painting, particularly in the facial features of the female subject, reflect the artist’s fascination with the revival of Mughal aesthetics. Descending from a lineage of artisans, he employed only the finest materials in his works, of which this poetic portrayal is a prime example.

SAYED HAIDER RAZA (1922-2016) BINDU (FIVE ELEMENTS), 1999 Estimate: £100,000-150,000
Delicately rendered, Bindu (Five Elements) is an example of Raza's fascination with the Bindu (a Sanskrit word meaning point or dot). Co-founder of the revolutionary Bombay Progressive Artists' Group, Raza’s practice was deeply influenced by Buddhist, Hindu, Jain, and Islamic spiritual iconography. This painting is an early example of the symbol that preoccupied Raza’s work from the early 1980s until his death in 2016. Primary colours highlight the elements of nature; red, blue, yellow, white and black comprise fire, water, wind, earth and the sun.

JEHANGIR SABAVALA (1922-2011) RICE FIELDS, PALNI HILLS – II, 2008 Estimate: £160,000-180,000
Sabavala’s large-scale Rice Field’s, Palni Hills – II is a sublime depiction of Southern India’s lush Palni hills, which he encountered during his extensive travels across the country. The landscape has remained a constant feature throughout the artist’s career, with his output currently the subject of great critical interest. Sabavala beautifully echoes the topographical structure of the Palni Hills, through his unique Cubist-inspired style.

RAQIB SHAW (b. 1974) DEATH, BEAUTY AND JUSTICE III, 2007 Estimate: £30,000- 50,000
Indian-born, London-based artist Raqib Shaw, features prominently in museums and institutions throughout the world. His intricate, exquisitely bejewelled work Death, Beauty and Justice III swarms with mythical beings, roaming wild amongst a sky of ornamental splendour. The artist uses a confetti of ornate pools of luscious enamel to hedonistically revel in this mysterious scene. This early work in the artist’s oeuvre references the unique enamelling technique inspired by Shaw’s Kashmiri heritage.