India’s greatest modernist Tyeb Mehta had a special affinity for Kali. Before his iconic work comes up at the Saffronart summer sale in June, UMA NAIR looks back at his auction history that defines rarity, provenance and pedigree
A study in the West says bad markets tend to produce better art as there’s less pressure on artists to produce and fewer temptations to sell out. Plus they’re dealing only with collectors and galleries willing to ride out the hard times. looking at that theory, there is no better example than that of Tyeb Mehta, the master of the metaphor.
In 2005, during an interview at his home in Mumbai, Mehta told me,“I learnt to paint with very little money when I started in the 1950s. Those were days of great struggle. Sakina, my wife, was the breadwinner while I was hunting for subjects that were far from Western art. While it was a struggle, it can be done. But the art that is born out of a struggle is different. Yes, it is an artist’s dream to capture a market like Picasso, but I did not create art for a market, it was for myself,” he said.
“My Trussed Bull series was born out of the haunting echoes of the slaughterhouse next to my house. It made me turn vegetarian, it also gave me my imagery. The Santiniketan series of Celebration was again the outcome of a different experience. Even now, after Mahishasura has sold for $ 1.5 crore, and with so many galleries at my doorstep, I am not producing, I cannot churn out works. I am not prolific, I create at my own pace. Thought goes into my works,” said the famous artist.
In 2002, Mehta’s Celebration set the record for the highest price an Indian painting has ever sold for (Rs 15 million) at a Christie’s auction. In 2005, Gesture broke his previous record when it sold at Rs 31 million at the Osian’s auction. In 2007, Tyeb’s Kali took prime place at Saffronart’s summer online auction — a 1969 oil on canvas, estimated at $875,000-1,125,000/Rs 35,000,000-45,000,000 sold for $987,500/Rs 39,500,00. Over the years Mehta’s work in international auctions has always found itself a coveted cover price. In the summer of 2017, his Untitled (Woman on Rickshaw) sold for a staggering Rs 22.9 crore at Christie’s annual sale, becoming the most expensive work of South Asian Art sold globally that year.
The feat of 2011: Tyeb Mehta scaled a new record in Indian art as his 1998 Untitled (Kali) went for Rs 5.72 crore at Saffronart’s auction, setting a new record in online bidding.
Although these were small format works, the sales attested to the high desirability of the very limited Kali paintings and their enduring popularity among collectors. Amidst recent headlines that have once again propelled Mehta to the spotlight, the monumental Kali painting on offer will be a highly coveted addition to any private or public art collection.
June 2018: Tyeb Mehta’s Kali, a powerful blue bodied painting, goes under the hammer at Saffronart’s flagship summer sale. Art, drama, theatre and compassion come together in the rare, iconic painting. Mehta and legendary theatre director Ebrahim Alkazi’s shared vision of the human condition is embodied in this powerful blue Kali painting. Over his entire artistic career, Mehta painted only three standing Kali figures between 1988 and 1989, of which the Kali on offer is the largest, at 67 x 54 inches. There are only a few smaller formats of Kali heads in later years. Mehta’s Kali represents the eternal cosmic dilemma of the human condition — the battle of good and evil, creation and destruction. She has been an inspiration for artists through the ages, and Mehta transforms the image with his own unique vocabulary, into a powerful masterpiece as theatrical as the Greek tragedies Alkazi is famed for directing.
Why is Mehta’s Kali so monumentalIJ Dinesh Vazirani, co-founder of Saffronart, explains, “The provenance of the painting is as significant as the work itself. The painting was once part of the art collection of the eminent and influential theatre director Ebrahim Alkazi. Mehta and Alkazi shared a unique friendship based on mutual respect and admiration.” Patron and collector, Alkazi and Mehta’s work go back a long way. The former inaugurated the first and largest solo exhibit of the modern master’s work at the Jehangir Art Gallery in 1959. Vazirani adds, “This painting thus acquires added meaning not just for its outstanding merit as a work of art but also because it symbolises the timeless connection between the artist and the collector.” Alkazi is also one of the first to discover Tyeb Mehta’s brilliance other than his collector Nandita Jain who commissioned his finest works.
Mehta’s introduction to Kali happened in 1985 when he was artist-in-residence at Kala Bhavana, Visva Bharati University, at the invitation of K.G.Sumbramanyan. It was at this time that Mehta felt the impact and the historical context, the perspective of Kali in the Indian philosophical stratum of spirituality, especially Advaita Vedanta. Mehta’s Kali is at once a metaphor for the past and the present, an icon of memory and materiality woven into the mythic mosaic of history. The 1989 version of Kali oil on canvas will go under the hammer for an estimated $3-4 million (Rs 18.9 - 25.2 crores).
