Who was Francis Newton Souza the Goa-born artist of whom art historian and critic John Berger once famously said that he “straddles many cultures, but serves none”?
Fake art scams aren t new. Just earlier this year, a former Los Angeles auctioneer agreed to plead guilty to an art fraud scheme where he fabricated 25 paintings in Basquiat s style and sold them to an Orlando, Florida gallery. The scam was exposed when a consultant spotted a FedEx label on the back of one painting that used a font that was introduced six years after Basquiat s death.
AstaGuru Auction House is organizing an online auction on December 11 and 12, featuring over 200 works by Indian masters such as Rabindranath Tagore, Homi Jehangir Bhabha, Manjit Bawa, C Raja Raja Varma, Bikash Bhattacharjee, FN Souza, Ganesh Pyne, Jamini Roy, Jogen Chowdhury, MF Hussain, Nandalal Bose, and SH Raza.
A large-scale work by Husain has a rendition of his horse motif which is appearing in an auction for the first time, an oil on canvas circa 1970 is estimated to be sold at ₹4-6 crore.