About This Auction

This autumn, Christie’s auction of South Asian Modern + Contemporary Art will take place on 17 September during Asian Art Week in New York. Our catalogue reflects the diversity and evolution of artistic practices and styles across South Asia and its diaspora throughout the 20th and 21st centuries.The sale is led by an important Untitled painting from 1984 by Vasudeo S. Gaitonde. First sold by Christie’s on 20 December 1987 in a charity auction in Mumbai, this luminous painting is meticulously constructed using numerous translucent layers of fiery amber and gold. Seemingly radiating light from within, it is one of the artist’s finest works from the period and underlines Christie’s longstanding commitment to India and South Asian art over the last four decades.2025 marks the birth centenary of both Tyeb Mehta and Krishen Khanna. We are honoured to celebrate their legacies with paintings that feature their most iconic subjects: Tyeb Mehta’s Trussed Bull and Krishen Khanna’s Bandwallas in Procession. These are accompanied by significant works by other important modern artists from the Subcontinent, including Jehangir Sabavala’s The Sand-Bank from 1967, last exhibited almost six decades ago, Sayed Haider Raza’s canonical Germination from 1988, Francis Newton Souza’s 1957 portrait Girl in a Dressing Gown and Maqbool Fida Husain’s dynamic Horses painted in 1971. The catalogue also features significant works by Jamini Roy, K.H. Ara, K.K. Hebbar, G.R. Santosh, Sakti Burman, Anwar Jalal Shemza and Rashid Chowdhury.Also included are works by Abdur Rahman Chughtai, George Keyt, Ivan Peries, Bikash Bhattacharjee, Jagdish Swaminathan and Shanti Dave, complemented by a selection of contemporary pieces by Jitish Kallat and Ravinder Reddy.