Highlights of two international summer sales

Paintings by SH Raza and MF Husain among other major modern & contemporary artists form the highlights in two international summer sales. Husain’s ‘The Sixth Seal’ is estimated at 500,000 pounds, and is up for grabs in London at South Asian modern & contemporary art sale of Sotheby's to be held on May 31.

The oil on canvas work formerly in the Chester and Davida Herwitz collection, is comprised of six vignettes - a compositional device that the legendary artist used in quite a few of his early works, the auction house mentions. A key lot by him, currently residing in Dubai and London, is also to go under the hammer in London at the Bonhams Modern & Contemporary Middle Eastern Art sales on June 1. The untitled picture in private hands since the 1970s depicts his characteristic themes and motifs is estimated to fetch between 70,000 to 90,000 pounds.

The auction event courtesy Sotheby's features a total of 62 lots. It is slated to fetch sales in the range of 2.8 million pounds and more. A 1956 Raza oil on canvas work that forms part of the auction is estimated to fetch 500,000 pounds. It was done a year after he received the 'Prix de la Critique' award in France.

The painting portrays the view from the artist’s studio window and stands for a very significant early phase in his artistic career when he chose to abandon the confines of traditional watercolor for a unique idiom in oil. Another composition features SH Raza's 'bindu' painted in shades of red, yellow, blue, white and black. The 'bindu' or points symbolize the five elements of nature in Raza's works. The 1985 work estimated at 600,000 pounds is among the earliest large scale depictions of the bindu.

On the other hand, the Bonhams' sales is representing artists from Egypt, Iraq, Iran, Lebanon, Syria, Sri Lanka, India and Pakistan.