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Ghulam Rasool Santosh (1929-1997)
Posted On: 19 Apr 2026 by Isaac Goodwin to Fine Art & AntiquesBusby were fortunate enough to offer a painting by the late Ghulam Rasool Santosh at auction which made £23,000 under the hammer in the April 2026 Fine Art & Antique sale.
The abstract composition with figure and monolith, oil on canvas was brought to the auction house by a well travelled intellectual couple with a particular interest in alternative and eastern mysticism. They travelled extensively through Asia in the 1950’s & 60’s, when Rasool Santosh was at the height of career.
Santosh was a Kashmiri poet and painter. He is widely viewed as the most important artist from the movement of neo-tantra in India. He was self-taught and started painting landscapes in his native Kashmir before studying at the Maharaja Sayajirao University at Baroda. Santosh became deeply influenced by Kashmiri Shaivism, an ancient Kashmiri Hindu tradition focused on tantra after a visit in 1964 to the Amarnath cave, a Hindu shrine in Kashmir. Following this, his worked pivoted away from figurative and abstract works in the mould of other Indian Progressives towards tantra. From then, until his death in 1997 he dedicated his life to this study.
