London-based auction house Roseberys recently celebrated a successful sale of Antiquities, Islamic and Indian Arts that surpassed the £1 million mark (including buyers' premium). Above all, the spotlight was on the Indian contemporary art scene, with a new auction record broken for S.H. Raza's Bindu work from 1995.
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The Bindu acrylic on canvas by the Indian painter shattered its presale estimate of £50,000-70,000 to achieve an incredible £312,000 (including buyers' premium) or about $390,000. The sale is the second-highest result for a Bindu painting ever to appear on the market and the highest outside of India.
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Sayed Haider Raza was born in 1922 in Kakkaiya, a small town in Madhya Pradesh, India. He was a founder-member of the Progressive Artists' Group (PAG), which was established in Bombay in 1947. The PAG was instrumental in the introduction of modernism to India and laid the groundwork for the development of Indian contemporary art. Raza's artwork is characterized by the use of vibrant colors and geometric shapes. The Bindu, which is a Sanskrit term meaning 'point' or 'dot', is a recurring motif in his artwork and symbolizes the origin of life and creation.
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Raza also lived in France from 1950 to 2016, and his artwork is strongly influenced by his experiences there. He was deeply inspired by the natural beauty of the French countryside and incorporated elements of French art movements, including Expressionism and Abstract art, into his artwork. Raza was awarded the Padma Shri in 1981, the Padma Bhushan in 2007, and the Padma Vibhushan, India's second-highest civilian award, in 2013. He passed away in July 2016 at the age of 94.
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The successful sale of Raza's work at Roseberys is a testament to both the strong demand for Indian contemporary art and the artist's influence on the Indian contemporary art scene. The interest in Raza has only grown over the years, with his artworks being exhibited in major galleries and museums around the world. The largest-ever retrospective of the artist at the Pompidou Centre in Paris is currently running until May 2023. The 90-work exhibition is the culmination of a series of shows in India that took place in 2022, the centenary year of Raza's birth, in three Indian private museums: the Piramal Museum of Art and the Jehangir Nicholson Art Foundation, both in Mumbai, and the Kiran Nadar Museum of Art in Delhi.
