Osian's Auction Catalogue Masterpieces and Museum-Quality III | March 2004

112 OSIAN’S 50 LAXMAN PAI (b.1921 / Madgaon, Goa) Birds S/d in English and Devanagiri l.l. & inscribed on verso Oil on canvas, 1963 45.0 x 81.5 cm (17.7 x 32.1 in) Rs. 225,000 – 300,000 US$ 5,000 – 6,650 GB£ 2,750 – 3,650 OSIANs S.I.R. ANALYSIS [1992–2003] Present Estimate 396.01 Previous High 854.25 [Os.Mum/24.02.01] Previous Average Works on canvas 42.18 Works on paper 504.47 Auction Average 289.84 Opinion Laxman Pai is still a very under- rated artist and his financial recognition has barely reached any fair benchmark as of today. “ He is a Goan painter and a painter of Goa… His work is full of the greenery of the land and it’s colourful people. This landscape has remained the most constant, major inspiration of his paintings, its primal source, a storehouse of inexhaustible images, Goa, its temples and churches, its rivers and wide open sea, its dashing waves, its palm trees, its paddy fields, its fisher folks, its costume are all reflected in his most characteristic paintings.” (Jehanara Wasi, in ‘Laxman Pai – Painter and Man’, rpt. in The Fountainhead 1962; p.34.)