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Vasudeo S. Gaitonde (1924-2001) Untitled, c. 1962
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Details
Signed in Devanagari (lower right).
Sizes:
Artwork: 37 × 53 cm | 14.6 × 20.9 in
A drift of black marks crosses the sheet from edge to edge like a line of script that has come loose from its meaning: hooked strokes of the pen, spatters, hair-thin trails and blots of ink that have bled into the wet paper and feathered at their rims. Around and beneath them lie pale washes of grey, laid in horizontal bands and left to pool and dry, so that the calligraphy seems to hang over water or mist, with a darker ridge at the upper right from which small plant-like forms rise.
The drawing belongs with the black-and-white ink works that Vasudeo S. Gaitonde made in the early 1960s, when the painter of the Bombay Progressives, drawn to Zen and to East Asian calligraphy, gave up the last traces of the figure for what he called the non-objective. In these sheets he worked with ink, wash and chance much as he would work with the roller and palette knife on canvas, and they were among the pictures that introduced him to America: he showed in New York in 1963, spent 1964–65 there on a Rockefeller Fellowship and had a solo exhibition in the city in 1965. According to its provenance this sheet was bought in New York in those years. It is signed in Devanagari, as his works on paper of the period are.
Provenance
Gallery 63, New York, acquired in the 1960s; thence by descent.
Acquired from the above in 2018.
Private Collection, Spain.
Condition Report
Ink and wash on wove paper, the sheet loose and unframed. Even light toning of the paper, a short tear at the right edge, minor handling creases and a few small spots of foxing; on the reverse a small remnant of an old mount with adhesive residue. Please contact us to request a detailed Condition Report.
Shipping
Packed as size S (up to 60 × 50 cm) · 53 × 37 cm
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We coordinate packing and shipping on your behalf, with insurance available if you’d like it — or you’re welcome to arrange your own. Please see our Shipping Information page for full details before completing your purchase.
Authenticity & Buyer Information
This lot is catalogued under the artist’s name without qualification. Provenance, dating and condition are described to the best of our knowledge; the sale is governed by our Conditions of Sale.
Buyers should review the catalogue carefully and raise any questions before bidding; additional information is not ordinarily provided after the auction.
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Market context
Gaitonde's ink drawings of 1962 on full sheets of about 76 x 56 cm, signed and dated, have sold at Saffronart for 109,091 USD (2016) and 228,000 USD (2023) including premium. This sheet is about half that size and signed but not dated, and the estimate reflects that.
| Date | Sale | Work | Price |
|---|---|---|---|
| 29 June 2023 | Saffronart (online) | Untitled, 1962, ink on paper, signed and dated, 74.3 x 54.6 cm | 228,000 USD with premium (estimate 80,000–120,000) |
| 8 September 2016 | Saffronart, New Delhi | Untitled, 1962, ink on paper, signed and dated, 76 x 56 cm | 109,091 USD with premium (estimate 75,760–106,065) |
Prices as published by the selling houses, including their buyer’s premium, in the currency of the sale. Estimate for this lot: €15,000–20,000.
What it costs
Bidding on this site, the buyer’s premium is 25%, Spanish IVA included. There is no VAT on the hammer price and no card fee.
| Starting price | Low estimate | High estimate | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hammer price | €10,000 | €15,000 | €20,000 |
| Buyer’s premium 25% (IVA included) | €2,500 | €3,750 | €5,000 |
| Total on auroraathena.com | €12,500 | €18,750 | €25,000 |
| Total through a bidding platform (30%) | €13,000 | €19,500 | €26,000 |
Through LiveAuctioneers, Invaluable, Drouot or Bidspirit the premium is 30%: the same hammer of €20,000 costs €26,000 there against €25,000 here. Shipping and insurance are quoted separately; the estimator below gives the figure for your country. Buyers outside the EU pay no Spanish tax on the lot; the destination’s import rules apply (United States: original paintings and drawings enter duty-free; United Kingdom: 5% import VAT on art). Card payments are accepted up to €10,000; larger amounts by bank transfer.
Questions about this lot
How does the estimate compare with the artist’s recent auction results?
Gaitonde's ink drawings of 1962 on full sheets of about 76 x 56 cm, signed and dated, have sold at Saffronart for 109,091 USD (2016) and 228,000 USD (2023) including premium. This sheet is about half that size and signed but not dated, and the estimate reflects that.
The results we compared are listed under “Market context” on this page, each with its source, so you can check them.
What will this lot cost in total?
Bidding on this site, the buyer’s premium is 25%, Spanish IVA included, and there is no VAT on the hammer price and no card fee: at the starting price of €10,000 the total is €12,500; at the low estimate of €15,000 the total is €18,750; at the high estimate of €20,000 the total is €25,000.
Through LiveAuctioneers, Invaluable, Drouot or Bidspirit the premium is 30%, so the same hammer of €20,000 costs €26,000 there. Shipping and insurance are quoted separately; the estimator on this page gives the figure for your country. Buyers outside the EU pay no Spanish tax on the lot; the destination’s import rules apply (United States: original paintings and drawings enter duty-free; United Kingdom: 5% import VAT on art). Card payments are accepted up to €10,000; larger amounts by bank transfer.
How is this lot catalogued?
Under the artist’s name without qualification. Provenance, dating, condition and value are described to the best of our knowledge; the sale is governed by the Conditions of Sale.
Can I see the condition report, more photographs or the work itself?
A condition report with ultraviolet photographs is prepared on request, normally within two working days; the condition summary on this page is examined in-house and is not a conservator’s report. Further photographs of any detail, the reverse or the frame are sent on request. The work can be examined in our Barcelona showroom by appointment before the sale, and you are welcome to send your own conservator or specialist.
How does bidding work, and can a maximum bid make me overpay?
You can leave a maximum bid before the sale (the sale is on Saturday, November 28th - 17:00 (CET)) or bid live in our online room. A maximum bid is executed by the auctioneer only as much as is needed to stay ahead of other bidders, in the sale’s increments, never above your maximum.
Where a reserve exists it never exceeds the low estimate; a lot without a reserve sells to the highest bid at or above the starting price of €10,000.
Is there a limit on how much I can bid?
Every account is approved for bidding as soon as the e-mail address is confirmed, with a limit of €5,000 per bid until the identity is verified. The limit applies everywhere: in the live room, on the lot page and to maximum bids. To bid without a limit, verify your identity in your account on this site: it takes about three minutes on a phone, is done once, and the limit is lifted automatically as soon as the check is complete. Please do it at least an hour before the sale.
Vasudeo S. Gaitonde
Vasudeo Santu Gaitonde was born in Nagpur in 1924 to a Goan family and grew up in Bombay, where he took his diploma at the Sir J. J. School of Art in 1948. In 1950 he was invited to join the Progressive Artists’ Group founded by Souza, Raza and Husain. His early work looks to Indian miniature painting and to Paul Klee; by the end of the 1950s the figure had disappeared from it, and he arrived at the painting he preferred to call non-objective, not abstract.
He showed in New York in group exhibitions in 1959 and 1963, lived there in 1964–65 on a Rockefeller Fellowship, where he saw the work of the Abstract Expressionists at first hand, and had a solo exhibition in the city in 1965. Zen Buddhism and East Asian calligraphy shaped both his thinking and his method: slow, solitary, a handful of canvases a year, the paint laid and lifted with rollers and palette knives until the surface seemed to hold light.
The black-and-white ink drawings of the early 1960s and the luminous canvases that followed are the core of his achievement. He was awarded the Padma Shri in 1971 and the Kalidas Samman in 1989–90, and spent his later decades in a small flat in Nizamuddin East, Delhi, working little and exhibiting less. He died in August 2001.
In 2013 one of his canvases became the most expensive Indian work of art then sold at auction, and in 2014–15 the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York gave him the retrospective ‘V. S. Gaitonde: Painting as Process, Painting as Life’. His work is in the Museum of Modern Art, New York, the National Gallery of Modern Art, New Delhi, the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research and the Jehangir Nicholson Collection, Mumbai.
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