Souza's couple laughs all the way to bank with Rs 16.8cr bid
New Delhi:
TIMES NEWS NETWORK
That the modern masters are still capable of breathing life into a relatively lacklustre Indian art market was proved yet again when a work by Goa-born Francis Newton Souza sold for `16.84 crore at a Saffronart auction in Delhi on Thursday , creating a new record for the artist. It also became the fourth most expensive work of Indian art to be sold at an auction, after those by V S Gaitonde, S H Raza and Amrita Sher-Gil.
Souza's previous best was in 2008, the height of the art boom, when a painting called `Birth' went for $2.5 million or `10.5 crore.
The work that sold at Saffronart anniversary sale was titled `Man and Woman Laughing' (1957), and shows a couple with big, ugly teeth and all-knowing eyes up in their foreheads. It's signature Souza who was as scathing with his brush as he was with his tongue.
