Sotheby’s selects Raza’s ‘Village With Church’ painting for New York sale

A painting entitled ‘Village With Church’ by renowned artist Sayed Haider Raza will appear at Sotheby’s March 2012 Asia Week sales in New York. It will be one amongst rare lots to highlight the sale and is estimated to sell for $1.5/2.5 million. It will feature in Sotheby’s sale of Modern and Contemporary South Asian Art on 19 March 2012 and will be on view beginning 16 March.

The painting was purchased by Mr. and Mrs. John D. Rockefeller III from the landmark 1958-59 exhibition Trends in Contemporary Painting In India and remained in their historic collection until 1994. It represents the apex of Raza’s early period. Having spent a considerable portion of his career in France, he was deeply moved by the works of the European modernist masters, particularly Cezanne and van Gogh. He is the receipt of the prestigious Prix de la Critique (Critic's award) in 1956. Village with Church exudes a dynamic, tempestuous energy which is characteristic of the artist; a hybrid of the lyrical abstraction redolent of the postwar ecole de Paris, and the vibrancy and direct color treatment of a Rajput miniature. Village With Church is one of the seminal paintings from this period and stands as an enduring legacy of one of the pioneers of Indian Modern Art.

Priyanka Mathew, Head of the Modern and Contemporary South Asian Art Sale at Sotheby’s said: “We are delighted to bring this important and historic painting to auction. John D. and Blanchette Rockefeller were two of the most important early champions of modern Indian painting in the United States. Their patronage and support was key in introducing the work of the Progressive Artists’ Group in America, of which Village With Church is such a significant example.”