The dependable Tyeb Mehta

The abstract figures in Tyeb Mehta’s works, which have become a metaphor for human suffering, have long resonated with collectors and art enthusiasts. On 25 May, his Untitled sold for Rs22.9 crore at Christie’s annual South Asian Modern + Contemporary Art sale in London, setting not only a new world auction record for the artist, but also becoming the most expensive work of South Asian art sold globally this year. It will be interesting to see how yet another work by the modern master—The Falling Figure—fares at Saffronart’s forthcoming summer online auction, on 6-7 June. The falling is vertiginous; and metaphorically expresses man’s freedom in the very act of infinite questing,” wrote poet Dilip Chitre about the series in Ideas Images Exchanges, a monograph on Tyeb Mehta published by the Delhi-based Vadehra Art Gallery. Over three decades of watching this painting every day, one realizes that the painting continues to reveal a journey, not just of Tyeb Mehta’s life, but mine as well.” For Dehlvi, the work is unique also because it forms the genesis of a theme that her father would explore for decades through other images of The Falling Figure as well as with Trussed Bull, Mahishasura and Kali.