Mumbai: Artist Tyeb Mehta, one of founding group of Indian modernists has died in Mumbai. He was 82 and suffering from a heart ailment.
In a career spanning six decades, Tyeb Mehta was one of the most distinguished names in contemporary Indian art and a member of the progressive artists group established in Bombay in the 1940s together with MF Husain, Francis Newton Souza and others.
Often called India's Francis Bacon, Mehta's large violent canvases with brutalized figures painted in bold flat colours were much prized by collectors.
A filmmaker, painter and sculptor, Tyeb Mehta held the record for the highest prices fetched by a contemporary Indian canvas at auction at home and abroad.
His painting titled Mahishasura went for $1.58 million at Christie's in New York. Soon after in 2002 another work fetched Rs 1.5 crore and three years later Gesture went for more than Rs 3 crore.
As a person Tyeb Mehta shied away from the spotlight, he remained impervious to the politics of the art world and let his art speak for him.