Bhupen Kakkar leads modern Indian masters sale in New York

A rare canvas by Bhupen Khakhar sourced from a private collection and representing a critical moment from the late Indian painter's career is set to lead Sotheby's Modern and Contemporary South Asian Art sale here.
The auction, scheduled on September 18 will also feature "seminal paintings by some of India's most storied modern artists including Ram Kumar and Francis Newton Souza and a curated selection of works by important modern artists not often seen at auction," the auction house said.
This is the first Indian art sale in New York after the Amaya Collection sale earlier this year, the first international evening sale of Indian art which fetched almost USD 6.7 million.

Khakhar's painting, estimated to fetch between USD 1,80,000- USD 2,20,000, is representative of a critical moment in Khakhar's career as he developed a local and idiosyncratic language for Pop Art in India, said the auction house.
"In the upcoming sale, seminal artists such as Francis Newton Souza and Ram Kumar are juxtaposed with works by senior artists making their auction debut including Bipin Goswami, Kshitindranath Majumdar, M Reddeppa Naidu and Badri Nath Arya; an array of works to entice both seasoned and new collectors alike," Priyanka Mathew, vice president, head of sales, Modern and Contemporary South Asian Art said in a statement.

The auction also includes works of Modernist sculptors such as Prodosh Das Gupta and Himmat Shah.

Originally owned by a Latin American diplomat, an Untitled 1961 landscape by Francis Newton Souza, painted during his travel through Italy has been estimated to fetch USD 200,000- USD 300,000.
A further highlight by Souza is the historically significant Sabartes after Picasso; After Pablo Picasso, (estimate USD 100,000- USD 150,000) which once belonged to Harold Kovner, an American collector who was Souza's leading patron between 1956 and 1960.
An iconic representation by Manjit Bawa of Apu, the mascot for the 1982 Asian Games 1982 is estimated to go under the hammer for USD 200,000 to USD 280,000.

Also included in the auction is a rare untitled drawing of village women serves as the largest drawing executed by South Indian artist K. Laxma Goud ever to come to market (estimate USD 30,000-USD 50,000).
The sale includes a selection of six early works executed by Ram Kumar during his trip to Varanasi. "Aspiration" Gulam Rasool Santosh's figurative work, one of the largest of its kind to come to the market has been estimated between USD 100,000 to USD 120,000).
A further highlight of the sale is A Ramachandran's 1981 dynamic six by twelve foot canvas painting "Kalinga War" (estimated at USD 180,000- USD 200,000) sourced from a European private collection.