Tyeb Mehta’s ‘Trussed Bull’ sells for ₹61.8 crore, sets a new record for him

The two-day auction by SaffronArt also set a world record for the highest value sale of South Asian art at an auction

A 37” x 41.5” oil on canvas painted by one of India’s foremost modernists Tyeb Mehta in 1956 sold for ₹61.8 crore, setting a new world record for the late artist in his birth centenary year at the SaffronArt live auction held on Wednesday. The painting titled Trussed Bull, belonged to the Tyeb Mehta Foundation, and was put up for auction by the artist’s wife, Sakina Mehta, who is based in Mumbai.

Trussed Bull joins Amrita Sher-Gil’s The Story Teller (1937) as the second highest value work by an Indian artist sold at auction (saffronartindia)

The two-day auction also set a world record for the highest value sale of South Asian art at an auction, achieving a total sales value of ₹245 crore ($ 29 million), a representative of the auction house said. The sale on day one itself exceeded the recent Christie’s South Asian Modern and Contemporary Art held last month where a painting by MF Husain sold for a record ₹118 crore, the highest price ever achieved for any work of Modern Indian art at a public auction. The total sale value for the auction held in New York on March 19 was $ 24,864,316 or ₹212.10 crore.

Trussed Bull joins Amrita Sher-Gil’s The Story Teller (1937) as the second highest value work by an Indian artist sold at auction. Both days saw white glove sales — all lots under the hammer sold.

“There have been many records broken by Modern Indian artists in the last auction season alone from which we can understand two things. One, there has been a structural shift in the market. We have strong institutions as well as strong collectors buying Indian artists, which is a good thing because it means that the room for speculation is fast declining. Two, the price threshold has moved up. Both these things are very good news for Indian art,” said SaffronArt CEO and co-founder Dinesh Vazirani.

The two-day auction formed part of SaffronArt’s 25th anniversary celebrations, and saw global price records set for seven Indian artists including contemporary artists like Nalini Malani as well as turn of the century painters like Hemendranath Mazumdar.

According to Artery India’s Artist Tracking Report on Tyeb Mehta, the financial position of the artist has recorded a strong upward trajectory, with a turnover of Rs. 971.4 crores from the sale of 290 works, said Arvind Vijaymohan, founder and CEO of art research and advisory firm Artery India. The report also highlights that the artist’s top price at auction has been breached thrice in the past 36 months.

Included in the sale was a still life by Amrita Sher-Gil, titled Still Life with Green Bottles and Apples, 1932, which was sold for ₹24 crore ($ 2.82 million). Such a work by Sher-Gil is rare to come up for auction since she painted only a handful of still life works during her career, with few remaining in private hands, a company representative stated.

Supper at Emmaus, 1987 (lot 55) by modernist F N Souza sold for $ 1.8 million ( ₹15.30 crore). This painting depicts Caravaggio’s 17th-century painting of the same name, and is among a series of paintings centred around Biblical themes that Souza made in the 1980s. Other highlights from the sale include Lake at Oodeypore, India, Circa 1893 by American artist Edwin Lord Weeks, which sold for ₹12 crore ($ 1.41 million) and Sakti Burman’s Durga, 1995 which sold for ₹7.20 crore ($ 847,059).