Untitled VS Gaitonde painting among highlights at Sotheby's

An untitled painting by Indian artist VS Gaitonde is to lead a sale of South Asian art at Sotheby's New York.

The lot is estimated to make $1.5m-2m when it crosses the block on March 18.

Gaitonde Sothebys
VS Gaitonde is one of India's best-known artists

It dates to 1963 and is typical of the work he was producing at the time, which was beginning to move away from the influence of Paul Klee to a purer form of abstraction.

Author D Nadkarni, in his 1983 biography of the artist, explains the appeal of his work: "There is a sense of atmosphere, there is an approximation of music and what is more important, there is a throbbing mystery about the very process of viewing and responding as if one is sucked into some still centre of hitherto unknown experience."

A self-portrait by Amrita Sher-Gil is valued at $1.2m-1.8m.

Sotheby's comments: "In life and art, Sher-Gil was a woman both within and ahead of her time, breaking boundaries that make her one of India's most compelling figures of the 20th Century.

"A slight hint of an enigmatic smile and a mischievous twinkle in her eye, make this charming painting, one of the very few such works in existence outside of India, a leading example of Sher-Gil's oeuvre."

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