Taj Palace art auction raises Rs 2.8 cr

New Delhi, Aug 10 (IANS) To mark its 115th anniversary, Delhi's iconic 5-star hotel Taj Palace has raised Rs 2.8 crore through an auction of a fascinating lineup of Indian modern and contemporary art and donated 40 per cent of it to the Taj Public Service Welfare Trust, the hotel said in statement released on Saturday.

The Trust reaches out to those affected by adversities like victims of terrorism, natural disasters and members of the armed forces, to help rebuild their lives.

The rest 60 per cent of the amount raised will go to DAG.

The works, curated from art gallery DAG's collection, of Amrita Sher-Gil, F.N. Souza, M.F. Husain, S.H. Raza, Jamini Roy, K.H. Ara, Sohan Qadri and Sakti Burman were put on auction.

An untitled graphite-on-paper by Sher-Gil (1913-41) went under the hammer for Rs 70 lakh in the Friday auction.

Another key painting by world-renowned artist M.F. Husain (1913-2011), a 1982 watercolour titled 'That Obscure Object of Desire' sold for Rs 22 lakh.

Taj's live auction 'Art from the Heart' was a no-reserve and no buyers premium one.

"Each work has been picked to reflect a wide swathe of Indian art. When curating the selection, we ensured the periods they represent are varied (from 1952 to 2005), that the works are in different mediums, and that the genres range from figurative to abstract, from heads to landscapes, from folk modernism to high modernism," Ashish Anand, MD & CEO of DAG, the curating gallery, had earlier told IANS.