Auction introduction: This year, Christie’s live auction of South Asian Modern + Contemporary Art will be held on 21 September during Asian Art Week in New York. Alongside the single-owner auction, Centering the Figure: South Asian Modern + Contemporary Art from the Collection of Romi Lamba, this sale presents a significant group of works that celebrate diverse artistic practices from South Asia and its diaspora in the 20th and 21st centuries. Highlights from this catalogue include remarkable early paintings by Ram Kumar, Maqbool Fida Husain, Francis Newton Souza, Vasudeo S. Gaitonde, George Keyt and Anwar Jalal Shemza, held for several years in private collections such as The Collection of Alfred C. Stepan, and appearing at auction for the first time. Also included are exceptional works by Narayan Shridhar Bendre, Tyeb Mehta, Sayed Haider Raza, Jagdish Swaminathan and Krishen Khanna. Complementing these are important works on paper by Nandalal Bose, Jamini Roy, Bikash Bhattacharjee, Nasreen Mohamedi, Zarina and Bhupen Khakhar.