NEW YORK, NY.- Christie’s announces a selling exhibition Modern + Contemporary: Masterpieces from the Subcontinent to be held March 11-21, coinciding with the series of auctions during Asian Art Week. The exhibition features modern works by Vasudeo S. Gaitonde, Maqbool Fida Husain, Krishen Khanna, Ram Kumar, Tyeb Mehta and Syed Haider Raza, and explores the unfolding story of modern art in Post-independence India from the early 1950s through the 1970s, when modernism comes into its own and crystallizes its identity. The exhibition’s dialogue on the lasting influence on modern Indian art is complemented by contemporary works from Alwar Balasubramaniam and Zarina, who are both highly regarded in museum and collector circles alike for their extremely well-conceived and produced pieces.

Highlights of the exhibition include:

SYED HAIDER RAZA (b. 1922) Village with Church signed and dated ‘RAZA ‘58’ (lower right); further bearing ‘The American Federation of Arts’, ‘Asia House’ and two ‘Collection of Mr. and Mrs. John D. Rockefeller 3rd’ labels (on the reverse) oil on canvas 63 3/4 x 51 in. (161.9 x 129.5 cm.) Painted in 1958
In 1959, Village with Church was featured in the first exhibition of Indian art in the United States, Trends in Contemporary Art from India, held at the prestigious Graham Gallery in New York. Selected not simply on the basis of its aesthetic force and innovation, but as a cultural interlocutor, Syed Haider Raza’s painting was one of Indian Modernism’s first ambassadors to the United States.

In the 1950s, John D. Rockefeller III and his wife, Blanchette, of the eponymous American philanthropic dynasty, flew to the newly established Indian republic to promote inter-cultural dialogue. They subsequently acquired the painting and maintained it within the family collection until 1994. Raza’s masterwork is woven into the Rockefeller’s ambassadorial legacy, and the history of Indian Modernism’s arrival onto the international stage.

MAQBOOL FIDA HUSAIN (1913-2011) Second Act signed ‘Husain’ (lower right); further inscribed and titled 'ARTIST: M.F. HUSAIN / SHIPPED FROM / AIR FREIGHT 6/79 / SHAMSHAD J20, JUNGPURA EXTN: NEW DELHI 10014 / 48”x78” / ‘SECOND ACT’' (on the reverse) oil on canvas laid on board 47 7/8 x 74 3/4 in. (121.6 x 189.7 cm.) Painted in 1958
In Second Act, one can see the aesthetic relationship Husain perceives between classical sculpture and painting; figures are distilled to elemental forms. The distortions of the female body and the denaturalizing colors recall the German Expressionists of Die Brücke, the rounded feminine of Matisse’s fauvist oeuvre, and the shifting geometries of Picasso’s female figures.

ZARINA (b. 1937) House on Wheels painted cast aluminum 12 x 8 1/2 x 3/4 in. (30.5 x 21.6 x 1.9 cm.) each Executed in 1991; Twenty five units
Zarina’s experience of the Partition of the Indian Subcontinent as a child, and her extensive travels with her diplomat husband through Europe, the Middle East, Latin America and Asia, has resulted in a unique conception of nationality and origin for the artist that has eroded distinctions between place, home and location. Having lived in 25 different cities and towns over the years, it is unsurprising that one of the main themes Zarina’s work explores is the ephemeral nature of ‘home’.

Since the early 1980s, one of the artist’s main vehicles for this exploration has been the abstracted motif of the house. In this sculptural installation, a unique set of twenty-five cast aluminum structures, process, medium and concept are as important as the final aesthetic. Influenced by her teacher Stanley William Hayter, conceptual artists like Lucio Fontana, Yves Klein and Jean Arp, and also by the minimalist sculptures of Richard Serra, this work distills complex thought processes into a clean, uncomplicated image.