Giving Compass' Take:

• Mid-day profiles Gurcharan Das, an Indian intellectual and executive, who amassed one of his country's earliest corporate art collections.

• Das is also known as a philanthropist and one of the co-founders of Ashoka University. Proceeds from the sales of pieces within his collection will go toward helping education causes in India.

• Here's a primer on Indian diaspora giving and the power of one percent.

Renowned widely as an intellectual and a prolific writer based out of New Delhi, there is a lesser-known side to Gurcharan Das, the art connoisseur. In an upcoming sale of South Asian modern and contemporary art by Christie's, to be held in New York next month, one of the highest estimates is for a painting by Tyeb Mehta from Das' collection. Painted in 1975, the piece is titled Diagonal XV. The Diagonal series marked Mehta's maturity as an artist by putting form above content.

"Tyeb's works aren't figurative. He looks at form, and the Diagonal series is an interesting way to break up space and colour," says Das, 74. Das' interest in modern and contemporary art can be traced back to his days as a student in Harvard, where he graduated in Philosophy, but was exposed to various other subjects, including art and architecture. Musing that he nearly thought of becoming an architect, Das joined Richardson Hindustan Limited (RHL) as a trainee in then-Bombay in the 1960s. "I would look longingly at paintings in galleries such as Chemould and Pundole's. My interest sort of grew from there," says Das.

When he became the CEO of the company, which later became Procter & Gamble India, Das built one of the earliest corporate collections that the country had seen. Comprising nearly 150 works, the collection boasted of Modernists, such as MF Husain, SH Raza and VS Gaitonde. There were also works by Jamini Roy, KG Subramanyan and Jagdish Swaminathan that Das brought into the collection.

Read the full article about Gurcharan Das' art collecting journey by Benita Fernando at mid-day.com.