Saffronart announces its Spring Online Auction of Modern and Contemporary Indian Art

Saffronart, India’s leading online auction house, will showcase the works of 38 modern and contemporary Indian artists at its annual Spring Online Art Auction. With a total of 80 lots, the auction features a selection of prominent works including paintings, drawings and sculptures. The auction will take place online atwww.saffronart.com on March 28 -29, 2012. 

This year’s Spring Online Art Auction features several exceptional works by modern masters including K.K. Hebbar, M.F. Husain, S.H. Raza, F.N. Souza, Akbar Padamsee and Arpita Singh alongside important works by contemporary artists such as Anju Dodiya, Jitish Kallat, Rashid Rana and Praneet Soi. The Spring Auction catalogue is suited to both first-time and seasoned collectors, and brings together a well-estimated selection of masterpieces and contemporary works of art with a total low and high estimate of Rs.17 crore (USD 3.5 million) and Rs. 23 crore (USD 4.8 million), respectively. 

 

One of the significant modern works featured in this auction is S.H. Raza’s 1979 canvas, titled ‘Paysage’. During the 1970s and 80s, S.H. Raza drew on his childhood memories of the nights he spent in the densely forested village of Kakaiya, where he was born, to create several large-format meditations on the role of darkness in the gestation of colour and life. In this painting, the artist skilfully uses a primary palette and loose, gestural brushwork, rather than direct representation, to express emotion, and in doing so, charges the surface with an imperceptible force that bestows the painting with a sense of immediacy and luminescence. Nature in this work, as in the rest of the artist’s oeuvre, is presented as a force to be reckoned with, a cycle without end, whose duality needs to be experienced in the soul, rather than simply imagined or observed. 

Another significant lot is M.F. Husain’s 1970 painting of horses, featured on the cover of the catalogue. One of the most powerful icons in Husain’s expansive body of work, the horse is a symbol of fervour, strength and free-will. The artist’s multiple encounters with the equestrian figure began as early as his childhood days in Indore, and extended through his extensive artistic career. Estimated at Rs. 1.5 to 2.5 crore (USD 312,500 – 520,835), this canvas is a powerful, monochromatic rendering of three horses, influenced by both the equestrian structures of contemporary Italian art, constructed out of effortless verticals and horizontals, and by the economy of line and colour of Chinese ink drawings, which Husain encountered on his travels around the world in the 1950s. Prancing and rearing, with broad chests and flaring nostrils, these horses are a symbol of bounding passion, power and virility. 

Akbar Padamsee’s untitled 1973 landscape is another highlight of this auction. Transcending the limitations of conventional geography, Padamsee’s works in this genre have always challenged his viewers’ notions of time and space. The artist coined the term ‘metascape’ to describe these ideal landscapes, stripped of all geographic and chronologic specificity. This canvas, one of the artist’s earliest metascapes, illustrates the importance that the artist attributed to colour, texture and orchestration over location and mimesis in this series of works. 

Among the contemporary lots is Anju Dodiya’s 2004 painting on mattress titled Coronation II. This three-dimensional work offers viewers a daunting self-portrait of the artist wearing a loosely wrapped turban and high-collared dress. Above her head, a large crown floats like a halo, hinting at themes of captivity and sovereignty, obligation and independence. An oversized pronged medieval weapon and a pencil suspended from the crown in front of the subject’s face link these ideas with the artist’s ongoing concerns about her creative process, and the violence she believes is inherent in it. 

Speaking about the auction, Dinesh Vazirani, CEO and Co-founder of Saffronart said, “With over a decade of experience with online auctions, Saffronart remains committed to its core principles of transparency and access, even as we expand what we offer at auction and engage with wider audiences globally. Saffronart’s Spring Auction 2012 offers a wide range of modern and contemporary art that is new to the market, of great aesthetic quality, and with impeccable provenance.” 

“Saffronart’s recent auctions have underlined both the ongoing appreciation for premium works of modern masters, and an invigorated demand for quality contemporary works.With strong results and increased interest from new collectors, we look forward to this auction, the first major sale of the year,” he added. 

The total lower and higher estimates for the Spring Online Auction are Rs. 17 crore (USD3.5 million) to Rs. 23 crore (USD 4.8 million) respectively. The sale will be accompanied by an print catalogue, an online catalogue and preview events and private viewings in New Delhi, Mumbai and New York. The sale will take place online on March 28-29th, 2012. Collectors may place bids at Saffronart’s website www.saffronart.com, or via Saffronart’s proprietary iPad application and Blackberry and iPhone mobile applications.