Renowned artist M F Hussain has now joined the million-dollar club after one of his paintings on slain theatre artist Safdar Hashmi went under the hammer for over one million dollar. An unidentified art collector went past the keenly fought bidding at an auction organised by Emami Chisel Art Auction House in Kolkata on Saturday (February 23) evening to bag 'Tribute to Hashmi' for USD 10.38 lakh (about Rs 4.4 crores). This is for the first time that a Hussain painting crossed the USD ten million in auctions, organisers claimed. Incidentally, this was the first painting of an Indian artist to cross the Rs ten lakh mark in 1987. The same bidder also added Tyeb Mehta's Kali-III to his collection for the same amount. Mehta's painting had the highest reserve price of Rs 2.5 crores for the bidding. Out of the 89 works by 70 artists, only ten works remained unsold while organisers fetched about Rs 24 crores from the bidding which was both on floor and online. Besides works of Hussain and Mehta, pioneering painters F N Souza and J Swaminathan also fetched over Rs one crore for their paintings. Souza's Manor House, whose reserve price was fixed at Rs one crore, was sold for Rs 1.65 crores while J Swaminathan's Birds and Mountains went for Rs 1.76 crores. Amrita Shergill's two untitled charcoal paintings on feminity were sold for Rs 21.85 lakhs and Rs 14.85 lakhs, while S H Raza's 'Landscape' cost Rs 92 lakhs for a bidder. Organisers said three of the bids were won by bidders from Italy, Mauritius and the United States. In 1989, 'Tribute to Hashmi' was the highest priced work at Timeless Art, an auction conducted by Sotheby's and organised by the TOI, on a ship off the Mumbai coast.   ... read more »