Jogen Chowdhury Dies at 87 as $80 M. Klimt Heads to Christie's

Gustav Klimt's lush, green landscape painting Litzlbergkeller (1915–1916) will carry an estimate of $60 to $80 million at Christie's New York on November 17, ARTnews reports. The sale is guaranteed. The painting has sat in the same private collection for nearly three decades. Its current, unnamed owner paid $14.7 million for it at Sotheby's in 1997 — the equivalent of $30.9 million today.

If the work sells within its estimate, it would rank among the Austrian artist's top prices at public sale. Klimt's current auction record belongs to Portrait of Elisabeth Lederer (1914–16), which fetched $236.4 million at Sotheby's New York in November 2025.

Max Carter, Christie's global chairman of 20th and 21st century art, framed the painting's appeal in formal terms. "The inn of Litzlbergkeller sits at the water's edge, between Klimt's allover technique and abstraction, form and dissolution, prewar and certainties and the unknown," Carter said.

What does the Chowdhury death mean for Indian art?

The same morning brought news of a significant loss. Jogen Chowdhury, one of India's most celebrated artists, died in Kolkata on October 25 at 87, The New Indian Express reports. He had been ill with a rare type of blood cancer, according to his family.

Chowdhury trained at the Government College of Art & Craft from 1955 to 1960 and later at the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris in the 1960s. He belonged to a second generation of postcolonial artists who reshaped contemporary art in India, blending Western modernist currents with local Indian influences.

His figurative expressionist works often used a cross-hatching technique to distort the human body. In the 1960s and 1970s, "many of our major artists were fond of doing abstract art, thinking that it was 'Modern' and the ultimate expression of art," Chowdhury told The Punch Magazine in late 2020. He chose a different path.

"Chowdhury's rich contributions in the field of art are evident in numerous government buildings … The works he left behind will remain for centuries," said West Bengal Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari.

Who is leaving the National Gallery Singapore?

Chief curator Patrick Flores and assistant chief executive Chris Lee will leave the National Gallery Singapore in December, The Straits Times reports. Their departures coincide with the exit of chief executive and director Eugene Tan, in a shake-up that removes three of the institution's most senior figures at once.

Nazi-era artifacts spared the auction block

Some 600 Nazi-era artifacts will go to museums instead of under the hammer in Germany, Monopol reports. The reversal follows an international outcry. The material includes personal letters from concentration camps and index cards kept by the Gestapo.

A gift to the Tate

British Indian art expert Charles Greig has donated 50 artworks made in India during the 18th and 19th centuries to the Tate, ARTnews reports.

The Gulf auction race accelerates

Sotheby's will hold its first auction in Abu Dhabi on December 10, The National reports. The sale, titled Breaking Ground, follows Christie's first fine art auction in the city on November 1, staged at the new Saadiyat Grove Experience Centre on Saadiyat Island. Two houses, six weeks, one island: the Gulf is now a contested auction market rather than a promise.

Sweden's oldest known warship found

Archaeologists have discovered a rare 15th-century shipwreck believed to be the oldest known Swedish warship, Le Figaro reports.

The Kicker: remembering Miguel Bergasa

Photographer Miguel Bergasa has died, El País reports. Born in Pamplona, Spain, in 1951, Bergasa photographed Paraguay's religious Mennonite community and was known for his black-and-white documentary images of rural festivals and rituals at risk of disappearing.

"I like to capture images of things you know time will erase. There's a sense of longing," he once said.

The week ahead will test whether the Klimt estimate holds in a cooling market, and whether the National Gallery Singapore names successors before its December handover.