Career
He left for London in 1959, where he worked and lived till 1964. Thereafter, he visited the New York, US, when he was awarded the Rockefeller Fellowship in 1968. During the years the artist spent in London, Mehta’s style was influenced by the expressionist works of Francis Bacon, but while in New York his work came to be characterized by minimalism. He made a three minute film, Koodal (Tamil for 'meeting place'), which he shot at the Bandra slaughter house, it won the Filmfare Critics Award in 1970. He also remained an Artist-in-Residence at the Santiniketan between 1984–85, and returned to Mumbai with significant changes in his work. Common themes of his works were trussed bulls, the rickshaw puller, from here he moved to the 'Diagonal series', which he created through the 1970s, after accidentally discovering it in 1969, when in a moment of creative frustration he flung a black streak across his canvas. Later in life, he added 'Falling Figures', and several mythological figures into his work, highlighted by the depictions of goddess Kali and demon Mahishasura.
Tayyab Mehta held the then record for the highest price an Indian painting has ever sold for at auction ($317,500 USD or 15 million Indian rupees) for Celebration at Christie's in 2002. In May 2005, his painting Kali sold for 10 million Indian rupees (approximately equal to 230,000 US dollars) at Indian auction house Saffronart's online auction. A reinterpretation of the tale of demon Mahishasura by Mehta showing goddess Durga locked in an embrace with the demon sold for $1.584 million. In 2008 one of his paintings sold for $2 million.
In December 2005, Mehta's painting Gesture was sold for 31 million Indian rupees to Ranjit Malkani, chairman of Kuomi Travel, at the Osian’s auction. This makes it the highest price ever paid by an Indian for a work of Indian contemporary art at auction in India.
Mehta's were the first works by a contemporary Indian artist to sell for over a million dollars, and indicated a burgeoning interest in Indian art by the international market; as a result, Mehta became a cultural hero.
Read more about this topic: Tyeb Mehta
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