Art for Mission Kashmir organised by Action India and the Appa Rao Gallery is likely to be the most important art event of 2006 so far. An online auction, it will have a ?live? countdown in Delhi, Mumbai, Banglore, Singapore and London. So one can expect it to be yet another boost to an already burgeoning art scene. Apart from that, it has another dimension we cannot overlook. The bullishness we see in our share and art market is not unconnected with processes that have marginalised and pauperised large sections of our rural people.
This exhibition has elements of the will to set that right by channelling the proceeds to the victims of the Kashmir earthquake. So the investor has the satisfaction of not only refurbishing what globalisation is leaving to chance but also ensuring that India creates its own level playing field in shoring up its rural home market by providing it a proper infrastructure. So it is worth the investor?s while for more than one reason.
The most important component of the auction is of course the work of MF Husain. His acrylic on canvas, India, (lot 23; 41.5?x 33.5?) is slated to sell between Rs70 lakh-80 lakh. I would expect it to go beyond Rs 1 crore. The work has an important place in our visual tradition. The Mother India theme is a powerful one of the literature of the national movement (from where we got the song Vande Mataram) that was picked up in art by painters like Abanindranath Tagore at the turn of the last century and by Bollywood a good 60 years later in one of its most famous films, Mother India, where the film star Nargis portrays India as a rural woman.
Husain?s painting is of a series that takes off from there. It is a work that represents India not as goddess but a woman. Moreover, the manner in which he uses the colours of the flag is so subtle that it is one of the best works of this genre. It reflects the not often remembered reality of how an ancient people overthrew colonial oppression on the basis of a powerful rural upsurge that culminated in the Naval uprising of 22 February 1946 that finally got the British to leave and moved forward to build a secular modern republic. The work is one of Husain?s best and will undoubtedly sell at beyond the highest price expected of it.
Other works of Husain that could top the Rs 1-crore mark are A Woman, of the early sixties (lot 21), The Tongawala and His Wife (lot 22) and Krishna (lot 24). In the same bracket one expects to see Raza?s Landscape (lot 13).
Other works worth bidding for are Jamini Roy?s Dancer, (lot 1) a gouache on paper (21.5?x 11?) slated to sell at between Rs 7-9 lakh. It should go above the highest price expected of it. Manjit Bawa (lot 5) Krishna and the Lion, an oil canvas(29?x 38?) ought also to fetch over Rs 25 lakh expected of it. Arpita Singh?s The Yellow Arm Chair (lot 41, acrylic on canvas, 36?x 36?) ought to reach Rs 45 lakh. Anjolie Ela Menon?s oil on board Profile of Xenobia (lot 14,30.5? x 23.5?) ought also to reach Rs 22 lakh.
Arpana Caur?s Floating Woman from her Sohni series (lot 27, 48?x60?) ought to reach the Rs 5 lakh mark, as also Dharti (lot 26). Her work Nargis and Raj Kapoor, (lot 25), however, was not first shown in Cinema Still curated by Gayatri Sinha, but in Arushi Arts show, Art and Cinema for which M F Husain created a special numbered series of pens that are collectors? items today. It was the first ever exhibition on that theme, later picked up by others.
Other works worth bidding for are a Ganesh Pyne Head, oil on canvas (lot 38, 9?x9?) expected to sell at between Rs 10 lakh-11 lakh; Ghulam Mohammed Sheikh, Retelling Tales (lot 9, 10?x12?, water coloyur) at between Rs 6-7 lakh), K G Subramanyan, drawings on paper at Rs 3 lakh to Rs 3.5 lakh (lots 1 and 17), F N Souza, drawing on paper at between Rs 2-3 lakh (lot 18); Chittrovanu Mazumdar, an acrylic on paper for upto Rs 5 lakh(lot 43); and the works of Paresh Maity, Krishnamachari Bose, Laxma Goud, T Vaikuntam, Rujas Konu and Shibu Natesan ought also to see good bidding.
In sum, the auction is well timed and carefully chosen. So, non-bidders also are advised to browse over the website of the gallery http://www.apparaoart.com for a look.