Raza’s “Saurashtra” fetches record Rs 16.3cr

Indian-born France-based artist Syed Haider Raza’s painting Saurashtra was on Thursday afternoon auctioned for £2,393,250, a world record for any modern Indian work of art. Saurashtra peninsula, a part of Gujarat state in India inspired Raza to create this masterpiece, which is now considered as the priciest modern Indian art work.

The 1983 painting by 87-year-old Raza which measures 200 centimetres (nearly 80 inches) square, is now the most valuable modern Indian art work and it was sold by a private French collector, who had acquired the 200 x 200 cm painting directly from the artist. Raza’s Saurashtra was bought by Delhi-based art collector Kiran Nadar (wife of HCL Technologies chairman and chief strategy officer Shiv Nadar). Nadar said she will display the canvas at her private museum in Noida.

Raza who is from Indian state Madhya Pradesh, moved to France 60 years ago and lives in Paris and Corbio in southern France. In 2009, Raza, one of the founder members of the Progressive Artists’ group, decided to stop painting professionally. Saurashtra, one of Raza’s most ambitious works, provides a transitional bridge into his structured geometric works which are characteristic of his most recent body of paintings and his representation of nature.

The painting was estimated by Christie’s auction house to sell for £1.3 million-£1.8 million, but was ultimately sold for £2,393,250.

The sale on Thursday broke the record of Francis Newton Souza’s 1955 painting, called Birth, which in June 2008 sold for £1,273,250, a world record for Indian modern and contemporary work of art till now. Raza’s four paintings, including Saurashtra, were auctioned at South Asian Modern and Contemporary Art Sale by Christie’s on Thursday.

“The painting is one of [the] most ambitious works he has ever created as an homage to his homeland,” Yamini Mehta, Christie’s London’s director of South Asian modern and contemporary art, said before the auction.

“Its size, scale, and expressive brushstroke radiates the brilliant colours of India and has a deeply spiritual subtext.”