At the Christie’s Asian Art Week sale in New York, Indian Modernist, FN Souza’s seminal work The Lovers, painted in 1960, sold for a staggering $4,890,000 establishing a new record. The live auction presented 36 works by the artist, and serendipitously, the sale coincided with Souza’s centenary.
“We are thrilled with the result achieved for the Modern + Contemporary South Asian Art live auction, which concluded at US$19.7 million,” notes Sonal Singh, Managing Director at Christie's India, and adds, “We have set the new world auction record for the FN Souza, when The Lovers sold for seven times its low estimate of US$700,000.” The auction also saw another work by the artist, Priest in Chalice, sold for US $3.9 million, much above its estimated price. The high demand stems from the fact that Souza’s works between 1955-1963 rarely come to market are sought after among collectors of Indian Modernism.
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The Lovers is a part of the works the artist painted during his years in London, widely regarded as the apex of his career when he became one of the most well-known members of the London School of Artists before becoming one of the most venerated Indian artists of the twentieth century. The painting, a part of the collection of Robin Howard, is a celebrated figurative work and is considered among the finest within Souza’s oeuvre. Unseen in public since it was painted, and only known from a black and white image, its monumental scale belies the sensitivity and warmth conveyed by the image of a couple in gentle embrace.
The brilliant reds, yellows, greens, and oranges of the two subjects’ tunics are heightened with gold, giving the work a sense of opulence in addition to its tenderness. This warm scene, pairing the closed eyes of the woman and her hand resting on her partner’s heart with his protective embrace, shows Souza at his sensitive best.
One of India’s first recognised Modernists, Souza was known for his strong figurative practice, his line drawings, and the series of ‘black paintings’ produced in London during the 1950s and ’60s for which he is most famous. Also revered for his repetitive use of themes and motifs, including Catholicism, the female nude, and the dichotomy between good and evil, he was instrumental in founding the Bombay Progressive Artists’ Group in 1947 along with fellow artists SH Raza, MF Husain, KH Ara, HA Gade and painter-sculptor SK Bakre.
The sale, coming on the heels of record prices in auctions last year where a 1937 Amrita Sher-Gil painting sold for $7.44 million and Manjit Bawa’s work fetched 25 crores, is a testament to the brilliance of South Asia's artists and a renewed interest in their path-breaking works. With the collector base for Souza’s work extending far beyond South Asia, Europe, and America, one can expect similar sums to be the norm rather than the exception in the future.
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