Artist Jogen Chowdhury in Rs 1 crore club

After the Mumbai Progressives’ bull run in recent months it’s the turn of Kolkata-based Jogen Chowdhury to enter the Rs 1-crore club. Chowdhury’s large, 1995 oil canvas titled Situation X fetched Rs 1.5 crore at the Saffronart online auction.

But it was not the most expensive painting sold. Francis Newton Souza’s Landscape in Orange (1961) went for the event’s highest price of Rs 3 crore, while Tyeb Mehta’s Situation sold for Rs 2.74 crore. Akbar Padamsee’s Mirror Image fetched Rs 2.74 crore too. M F Husain’s Holy was sold for Rs 2.6 crore, the highest among his 13 canvases on sale. ‘‘Chowdhury mainly works on paper. He rarely works on large canvases. This was a rare piece to find at an auction,’’ said Minal Vazirani, co-founder of Saffronart. The total auction sale value was Rs 57 crore. The average lock price was Rs 40 lakh, up 70 per cent from the auction house’s December sale.

Souza’s The Priest, done in 1955, considered the artist’s most productive phase, went for Rs 1.6 crore. In all, there were 10 works for which bidders paid over Rs 1 crore. One of the surprises of the auction held on Wednesday and Thursday was Lalu Prasad Shaw’s untitled tempera on paper. It was sold for Rs 9 lakh.