Tyeb Mehta’s ‘Mahishasura’ to be auctioned for over 10 crores

New Delhi: Tyeb Mehta, India’s celebrated modernist artist who rose to fame with his artwork named ‘Celebration’ in 2002 which sold for over Rs 1.5 crore at Christie’s is about to make history yet again with one of his prominent artworks.On Monday, London’s Christie’s will set on auction Mehta’s painting from his ‘Mahishasura’ series which have set a record earlier for crossing the sales price of 1 million in 2005. The 1996 painting from the series is estimated to fetch a whopping sum of over Rs 10 crore this time. The soon-to-be-auctioned artwork is a representation of the mythic battle between Goddess Durga and demon king Mahishasura. Yamini Mehta, director of South Asian Modern and Contemporary Art at Chrsitie’s says that the work is of the same level as those of Picasso’s. She further added, “Unlike other representations where Tyeb differentiates between the Goddess and the demon by the use of two colours, here it is difficult to tell where one ends and the other begins.” The auction also includes one of M.F Hussain’s paintings titled ‘Cinq Sens’ and other contemporary artists such as Anita Dube, Pushpamala N, Subodh Gupta and Bharti Kher.