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Christie’s Asian Art Week series (September 22–October 1), spanning eight live sales of art and antiques, achieved a total of USD 82.8 million, doubling the USD 41.64 million total from the six sales in September 2019. The dedicated 2020 sale of South Asian art from the renowned Jane and Kito de Boer Collection raised USD 3.56 million over 68 lots. The sale was led by Rameshwar Broota’s monochromatic painting of abstracted architectural forms, Silent Structures (1991), which surpassed a high estimate of USD 300,000 to fetch USD 525,000. His painting of a gray-toned faceless figure, The Last Chapter (1982), made USD 287,500, within estimates. Bengal School painter Ganesh Pyne’s The Animal (1972), of a skeletal quadruped, more than doubled its USD 150,000 high estimate and earned USD 400,000. Untitled (Seated Woman) (1962), an oil-on-satin portrait by auction mainstay Francis Newton Souza, of the Progressive Artists Group (PAG), brought in USD 237,500 against a USD 200,000 high estimate.
Christie’s South Asian Modern + (1974) abstraction of two jagged figures hammered at USD 1.11 million, within estimates of USD 1.1–1.5 million. The canvas was last acquired for USD 122,590 at Christie’s Hong Kong in July 2003. Jehangir Sabavala’s fresh-to-the-market figurative painting (1981) made USD 966,000 at the New York sale, exceeding the USD 600,000 high estimate and setting an auction record for the artist. Auction favorite MF Husain’s (1952), an early oil-on-board abstraction of a puppeteer, soared past the USD 500,000 high estimate to attain USD 822,000, while (1986), a red-hued depiction of a festive gathering, sold for USD 400,000, within estimates. Debuting at auction with undisclosed estimates, the cover lot, Indian modernist VS Gaitonde’s (1983) over-one-meter-high abstraction with green shapes, went unsold.
