The Times of India: Sotheby's to hold auction for Kolkata museum

30 Jun, 2007 l

1137 hrs ISTlIANS

NEW YORK: Famous modern Indian paintings, sculptures and photographs will go under the hammer here when Sotheby's holds an auction on behalf of the Kolkata Museum of Modern Art next month. The auction on July 17 will feature works by artists such as Tyeb Mehta, Jehangir Sabavala, Somnath Hore, Sakti Burman, Ram Kumar, F.N. Souza, Akbar Padamsee, Jogen Chowdhury, Ganesh Pyne, Arpita Singh, Rameshwar Broota, Paresh Maity, Subodh Gupta, Chintan Upadhyay, Baiju Parthan and Dayanita Singh. They will be exhibited by Sotheby's here from July 9. The auction is estimated to raise Rs.100-140 million (over $2-3 million) for the museum. The works have been donated in full or in part by collectors and artists. Said Zara Porter Hill, head of the Indian and Southeast Asian Art department at Sotheby's: "The sale is an opportunity for collectors to acquire works by several artists who are in high demand and for whom only a limited supply of works are on the market". The highlight of the auction will be Tyeb Mehta's "Kali Head", painted in 1998. It is expected to fetch $400,000-600,000. In this iconic work, Mehta portrays the Hindu Goddess Kali in an astonishingly modern manner. He refers to it as a "fantastic primordial image". Sculptor Somnath Hore's exquisite bronze work "Wounds" created in 1998 and donated for the benefit auction before his death is expected to fetch $20,000-30,000. Jehangir Sabavala's important 2005 work, "The Chhortens", is expected to fetch $150,000-200,000. It is a square oil and acrylic on canvas depicting wayside reliquaries nestling at the feet of a high snow-clad massif. The painting is haunted by nostalgia, for moments once possessed and now lost. The work, while being thoroughly representative of his distinct style, echoes Sabavala's early fascination with Cubism. Arpita Singh's "Classified File" (2007) is a whimsical composition where comedy and tragedy become interchangeable as the artist comments on our programmed urban existence, the mindless obsession with creation of wealth and prevalence of social injustice. It is expected to go under the hammer for $100,000-150,000. Other highlights include a 1960 paper drawing by Jogen Chowdhury, "Study of a Girl"; Sakti Burman's "Giraf in Liberty"; Akbar Padamsee's "Couple" and Rameshwar Broota's stark monochromatic comment on violence. Young Indian artists are also being featured. They include Subodh Gupta's shiny bronze and chrome sculpture of cosmetic items unveiling the complexities of a consumer-driven, globalising society; a large black and white abstract triptych by Kingshuk Sarkar and Baiju Parthan's "Metronome and Yield", which deals with the artist's multiple engagements with mass media, counterculture, the Internet, mythological symbols, and new age spirituality. Photographs by Pushpamala N, Vivan Sundaram and Dayanita Singh are being included as well. Tribal artists such as Swarna Chitrakar, Bhuri Bai and Mayank Shyam represent the traditional art of Bengal, explored through urban and contemporary themes.

The Economic Times : A little research can help beat art slowdown

ASHOKE NAG

TIMES NEWS NETWORK[ THURSDAY, JUNE 28, 2007 04:02:33 AM]

KOLKATA: In an art market, which has slowed down to an extent, art circles are contemplating buying strategies investors and collectors can adopt. One prime focus segment in the current scenario, they say, should be quality paintings by underpriced artists. Investors and collectors should also keep track of artists backed by well-known galleries since these names are normally promoted in a big way. Buyers can also go for earlier masters and sculptors who did not participate in the art boom in a major way.

“The surge in art prices over the last 2-3 years seems to have baffled many. That’s not to say that the different stakeholders — galleries, auction houses, artists, dealers and investors — were not delighted to make hay while the sun shone. Those involved in the stockmarket and realty sectors also rushed in to invest in art.

And, any artist with rising prices was seen as an investible brand. “Against this backdrop, while prices of top artists rose 10-20 times, those of next in line went up 5-10 fold. But, this could not continue endlessly. Prices had to stabilise,” an art market source told ET. Another source said with art prices now in a correction mode, buyers should be careful in their selection. If necessary, they can seek expert advice from established gallery owners or art connoisseurs.

“Small budget buyers should look for young and promising artists who are available below Rs 1 lakh. At the same time, instead of targeting quick returns, they must be prepared to wait for a couple of years for prices to go up. For instance, Subodh Gupta’s prices has gone up from Rs 3,000 in 1990 to beyond Rs 15 lakh in 2005-06. That’s not to say, of course, that price movements of most young artists are going to behave in a similar fashion,” the source added.

At the same time, buyers with bigger budgets should track the auction and gallery sales to be aware of current trends. After all, over time, the buying focus has shifted from Dutch Bengal and Bengal art to modernists, with the contemporary artists now gaining popularity.

“A collector, who is investing for the long term, can buy works which draw him or her. And, if prices moved southward, which is not certain of course, the collector will have the opportunity to pick up pieces unaffordable during the boom. One can also acquire the old masters who did not participate in the boom. A majority of the sculptors were also overlooked by the bull phase. They are highly buyable,” the source said.

The overall view is that a price correction will help the art market emerge stronger. Even the Chinese art market had gone through a correction phase in 2004-05. It’s bounced back again now. “While the size of the Indian art market is placed at $350 million, the Chinese market is worth $1.5 billion. The Indian art trade, thus, has a long way to go. In the 1990s, the international art market experienced a downturn. The world art scene is cyclical,” the source added.

KOLKATA: In an art market, which has slowed down to an extent, art circles are contemplating buying strategies investors and collectors can adopt. One prime focus segment in the current scenario, they say, should be quality paintings by underpriced artists. Investors and collectors should also keep track of artists backed by well-known galleries since these names are normally promoted in a big way. Buyers can also go for earlier masters and sculptors who did not participate in the art boom in a major way.

“The surge in art prices over the last 2-3 years seems to have baffled many. That’s not to say that the different stakeholders — galleries, auction houses, artists, dealers and investors — were not delighted to make hay while the sun shone. Those involved in the stockmarket and realty sectors also rushed in to invest in art.

And, any artist with rising prices was seen as an investible brand. “Against this backdrop, while prices of top artists rose 10-20 times, those of next in line went up 5-10 fold. But, this could not continue endlessly. Prices had to stabilise,” an art market source told ET. Another source said with art prices now in a correction mode, buyers should be careful in their selection. If necessary, they can seek expert advice from established gallery owners or art connoisseurs.

“Small budget buyers should look for young and promising artists who are available below Rs 1 lakh. At the same time, instead of targeting quick returns, they must be prepared to wait for a couple of years for prices to go up. For instance, Subodh Gupta’s prices has gone up from Rs 3,000 in 1990 to beyond Rs 15 lakh in 2005-06. That’s not to say, of course, that price movements of most young artists are going to behave in a similar fashion,” the source added.

At the same time, buyers with bigger budgets should track the auction and gallery sales to be aware of current trends. After all, over time, the buying focus has shifted from Dutch Bengal and Bengal art to modernists, with the contemporary artists now gaining popularity.

“A collector, who is investing for the long term, can buy works which draw him or her. And, if prices moved southward, which is not certain of course, the collector will have the opportunity to pick up pieces unaffordable during the boom. One can also acquire the old masters who did not participate in the boom. A majority of the sculptors were also overlooked by the bull phase. They are highly buyable,” the source said.

The overall view is that a price correction will help the art market emerge stronger. Even the Chinese art market had gone through a correction phase in 2004-05. It’s bounced back again now. “While the size of the Indian art market is placed at $350 million, the Chinese market is worth $1.5 billion. The Indian art trade, thus, has a long way to go. In the 1990s, the international art market experienced a downturn. The world art scene is cyclical,” the source added.

The Times of India: SHASHI ON SUNDAY

Hussain's Critics Voice Their Angst


24 Jun 2007, 0035 hrs IST,Shashi Tharoor

I suppose I should have been braced for the inevitable backlash that came my way in response to my column 'Why is India's Picasso staying away?', about the persecution of M F Husain, but I was still taken aback by the virulence of the attacks directed at me. Emailers and bloggers of a particular persuasion have insulted me roundly, called me everything from a deracinated intellectual to a 'jihadist', and dragged my mother, sisters and wife into their outrage as well. What on earth has happened to civilised discourse in our country? That people educated enough, and affluent enough, to have recourse to the internet, should express themselves in this manner is almost as depressing as the content of their convictions. I grew up in an India of school debates and inter-college tourneys in which we were encouraged, indeed expected, to disagree with each other, but to do so with reasoned argument, not invective. I am sure that India still exists, but it has yet to manifest itself on this issue.

There was one honourable exception to the unrelenting tirades of the self-righteous: a sincere and thoughtful email from a K V Sundaravadanan, respectfully expressing his anguish at Husain's paintings of Hindu goddesses and my defence of them. After all the hate mail i have received from those who disagree with me, it was a pleasure to hear from one who couches his concerns in such evident decency. But that does not mean he has persuaded me.

Mr Sundaravadanan acknowledges that Husain's paintings "no doubt have brought laurels to this country. But," he goes on, "what purpose have his pieces on Goddess Saraswati and Bharatmata achieved? Have they brought universal joy to the beholder? The artist should bring joy to the people and not pain or revulsion." That point, sir, is easily dealt with: few works of art elicit unanimous responses of either joy or revulsion. Aesthetic appreciation is often a subjective matter, and a painting that brings you joy might easily leave me indifferent, or vice-versa.

His second point, however, touched me. "I am an ordinary, very ordinary, individual, going about my life peacefully, without consciously causing mental or physical pain or anguish to anyone", writes Sundaravadanan. "I am probably a representative of millions of Hindus in this country or abroad, devout, and respectful to not only Hinduism but also other religions. The demolition of the Babri Masjid caused enormous mental anguish, which lasted for months. The above mentioned paintings of Mr Husain caused similar anguish which still hurts." And he adds: "i, like my millions of fellow followers of my religion, are a voiceless lot..."

Certainly the gentler voices of ordinary and well-meaning folk are all too often drowned out by the raucous cries of the extremists on both sides of any controversy these days, which is why i believe it is essential for liberal commentators like myself to listen to them. It would be foolish of us to pretend that the anguish expressed by Sundaravadanan is not real. But it is, sadly, unnecessary and misplaced.

Had Husain set out to denigrate Hinduism the way that the mobs set out to demolish the Babri Masjid, such anguish would be understandable. But Husain is a painter with a six-decade record of not just respecting Hinduism but of being inspired by it. In countless paintings he has revealed a profound and subtle appreciation of the tales and legends of Hindu tradition, allusions to which (and depictions of which) infuse much of his art. This is not some deracinated shock-jock, but an Indian as immersed in the Hindu cultural heritage as any artist who professes the Hindu faith. He has depicted goddesses and the quasi-divine characters of our mythology in his work for decades. But why unclad, Sundaravadanan may well ask. For millennia there has been a distinction in art between 'nudity' and 'nakedness'. The human form, whether ascribed to real people, mythological figures or divine beings, has long been a major subject of artists and sculptors in every tradition. Nudity was a staple of Indian art and sculpture for millennia: some of the most exquisite statues and temple carvings from antiquity depict goddesses (as well as apsaras, gandharvas and mythological characters) unclothed. It is the artistic merit of the work that distinguishes a nude from a salacious or pornographic depiction of the naked body. Michelangelo's David is revered and visited by millions every month. Yet, it shows a fully naked young man in anatomically explicit detail. What is more, David is the great hero of the Jewish people. Yet, there have never been any protests by Jews or others about Michelangelo's (or many other artists') depictions of David in the nude, because the artist's intent and the quality of his work speak for themselves.

In my view, that is also true of MF Husain. His intent is neither salacious nor hostile to Hinduism: he has depicted divine figures in keeping with the artistic sensibility of his age, just as Raja Ravi Varma's depictions of Saraswati reflect the best of Victorian canons of realist art. Sundaravadanan is of course free to disagree about the merits of Husain's work or his choice of subject-matter. Not everything Husain paints is equally worthy of admiration: his output is so prodigious that some of it is uneven. I have myself publicly questioned his depiction of Indira Gandhi as Goddess Durga in 1971. His motives were clearly political, but as a work of art the Durga/Indira painting is still impressive. That, in the end, should be the only criterion that matters.

Sundaravadanan adds his concern that Husain's work could provoke "sexual crimes and assaults on women". That, i'm afraid, is where he loses me. No work of art can explain or justify any sex crime; if an assault occurs, the criminals should be punished, not the artist. To put the artist in the dock for the misbehaviour of his detractors is to betray the best of our civilisation at the behest of the worst. And that no right-thinking Indian should let happen.

The Economic Times : India Inc sheds its art collection for a cause

ASHOKE NAG

TIMES NEWS NETWORK, THURSDAY, JUNE 21, 2007 01:37:42 AM

KOLKATA: Camlin is turning more proactive in promoting artistic talent. The company is working on a plan to auction its art collection to create a sizeable corpus for the Camlin Art Foundation, which triggers initiatives in the field of art. The foundation is now funded by the company.

“This project is now on the drawing board. There are over 300 paintings in Camlin’s collection ranging across the top names in Indian modern and contemporary art. We want to create a large corpus for the Camlin Art Foundation. At the moment, it is funded from the publicity budget of the company.

With a bigger fund, one can go for bigger projects. We would also like an independent board of governors to administer the foundation. At a slightly later date, artists and art writers will also be included in this board. An independent board will help develop more projects,” Chandrashekhar Ojha, national promotion manager, Camlin, told ET.

The company recently tied up with the Swiss company Colart International Holdings to bring the best of art materials to Indian artists. Colart, said Mr Ojha, boasts of the world’s most famous art material brands embracing labels like Winsor & Newton, Reeves, Liquitex, L&B, Conte and Tulip.

“At the moment, we are importing the brands from Colart and making them available at economical rupee prices to the Indian art fraternity. We are also selling Winsor & Newton canvases together with Camlin canvases,” Mr Ojha said.

Camlin is extending its backing to artistic talent to include school kids, art college students and professional artists. Known as the Camel Colour Contest at the school level, the event is designed in a manner to impact the child’s development in a “positive way”.

The Camlin Art Foundation is also sponsoring art exhibits in different regions covering art college students and professionals. Around 1,500-2,500 entries come in from different regions of which 100 are selected. Finally, 9 artists, including 5 students, and 4 professionals from each region are awarded by the foundation. While the professionals receive Rs 25,000 in cash, the students get Rs 10,000 in form of art materials and cash.

“The artists are also handed 100% of the proceeds from the sale of paintings. The unsold works are returned to the artists,” Mr Ojha said. The awardees from the regions are, in turn, shortlisted by a jury and sent on a Eurotour to expose them to overseas galleries and European masterworks. In 2007, 19 artists are headed for Rome, Florence and Paris.

The Times of India: Booking profits

B N Uniyal 17 Jun, 2007 l 0010 hrs ISTl

Everyone is talking of how heated the contemporary Indian art market has become in recent years but few seem to have noticed how the updraft from the art market is whirling up every other India-associated collectible to the skies. Art prices are exploding but so are the prices of all sorts of India-related memorabilia — photographs from the early twentieth and nineteenth century, tourism promotion posters and picture postcards from the 1950s-60s, philatelic albums, period furniture, antique chess sets, old coins, banknotes and early share certificates. Auction houses and dealers in London, New York and Los Angeles say they are being besieged from all over for India-related trash and treasure.

Especially hot are rare books, as is evidenced by the stunning prices realised at last month’s sale of 242 India-related antiquarian books at Bloomsbury, London. The auctioneers had estimated the sale to yield about Rs 90 lakh but the bidding in the auction room turned so furious that at the end the tally went up to a staggering Rs 2.10 crore. Add another Rs 40 lakh as buyer’s premium and the final figure soars to Rs 2.50 crore. This, despite the fact that the condition of the books offered was less than perfect. All but a few books were rumoured to have been grabbed by an NRI collector from North America. Even the few that the avid NRI collector let go from his hands fetched quite high prices. These were lapped up by some London dealers. Some dealers from India and Pakistan were present in the auction room but they too had to leave empty handed. Some dealers and auctioneers from Mumbai were bidding over the phone but they couldn’t get anything either.

A few books about India keep coming up for sale from time to time at art auctions or at the sales of mixed lots of collectible books but they do not usually cause the same excitement as auctions solely devoted to Indian books. There have so far been three such India auctions, all in London. The first, The Library of an Indian Gentleman, was held by Bloomsbury in November, 2003, when 315 books were sold for about Rs 1 crore. The second, held by Sothebys in May, 2005, also had 315 books on offer but they fetched a sum three times larger than the Bloomsbury sale. The third and the latest sale, again by Bloomsbury, contained the second tranche of the private library of American traveller and travel book collectors Robert Travis and wife Maria Travis, the first tranche having been sold by Sothebys earlier.

Collectible books associated with India have always been in demand from collectors and book dealers in Britain, France Germany, and Switzerland, the US and Japan, but the community of book collectors remained rather small until recently. It is only in the last four or five years that the demand for such books has been burgeoning in a big way as an ever larger number of young book fanciers has begun competing for books that are becoming scarcer by the year. Most 18th and 19th century books relating to India, particularly those with handcoloured plates, like those of the Daniells, Hodges, Simpson, Doyly, Fraser, Forbes, Forrest, Emily Eden, Fanny Parks, Grindlay, Gray, Gould, Wallich, Jerdon and Hooker were published in limited editions of 100 to 250 copies. Most of these are large size folios. These were scarce and pricy even when they were published over 150 to 200 years ago. Few copies of these books survive today. Most of these are shelved in institutional libraries. Hardly a few are in private hands. These come to market once in a long while and are quickly grabbed by collectors.

Dealers of rare books are whining that they are becoming scarce by the day. "Old books about India don’t stay long on the shelves," said Philip Brown, manager at the rare book section at the Blackwells at Oxford, "and replacements are hard to come by."

"I don’t think I can get a copy of a Grindlay, a Fanny Parks or even a Sleeman as easily or as quickly as I used to a decade ago," said an India specialist at an Amsterdam rare book shop somewhat ruefully. As these books are becoming scarce, prices are soaring ever higher. In many cases prices are doubling, even trebling, every few years. Alexander Jack’s Kot Kangra, a folio of just six plates with elaborate text descriptions published in 1847, sold for $1,275 at Sothebys in 1993 and soared to $4,680 at a Swann auction in 1995 and to $8,880 at Sothebys in 2005 and to a staggering $15,252 at Bloomsbury last month. Similarly, John Gould’s A Century of Himalayan Birds which had sold for just $2,534 in 1977 rose to $7,810 in 1986 and to $16,900 in 1998 and $ 23,920 in 2006. The asking price for an unblemished copy of a book like Wallich’s Plantae Rariore has risen to nearly $80,000 and that for Gray’s Indian Zoology as high $58,000.

A big change in recent years is the entry of quite a few young Indian collectors and dealers as also a fair number of NRIs from the US, Canada and the UK. They have added a new dimension to the rare book market by showing interest in collecting not only the eighteenth and nineteenth century plate books but also contemporary Indian authors Like Raja Rao, R K Narayan, G V Desani, Mulk Raj Anand, Ahmad Ali and Salman Rushdie. The first editions, special editions, academic works, signed copies and proof copies of these authors are much in demand. There are also collectors for such diverse disciplines as poetry, biographies, autobiographies, sciences, mathematics, economics vintage Indian cookery books. Gandhi, Nehru and Tagore are the most favourite authors.

As a result, auction prices of the first English language edition of Tagore’s Gitanjali, of which only 750 copies were printed at the Chiswick Press, UK, by the India Society, London, in 1912, have gone up to $2300 (2001) and $2576 (2004). The Golden Book of Tagore, a felicitation volume published in 1931 in a limited edition of 1,500 copies, sold for $55 in 1975 and for $90 in 1982 and then shot up to $2250 in 2003. A lot quicker has been the rise in the price of Loffrande lyrique, the French translation of the Gitanjali rendered by the French author, Andre Gide, himself a Nobel laureate like Tagore. This beautifully illustrated, large folio edition published in Paris in 1925 fetched $2,500 in 1995 and rose to $7000 in 2001. In 2002, it sold for $7,500.

However, the community of book collectors
is still quite small as compared to collectors of contemporary Indian art. They collect books for their beauty, rarity, antiquity and the sentimental value of their past associations. They may fancy a mint condition copy of Monier William’s Sakoontala, published in 1855 for the sheer beauty of its heavily gilt decorated binding, a de Bry from the year 1600 for its antiquity, a Hodges,
a Daniell or a Simpson for its numerous contemporary hand-coloured plates, or a Gandhi,
a Nehru or a Tagore for its historic association, or a first edition of Kipling’s Jungle Books or
of Kim in remembrance of times past.

Association copies are specially cherished, for who would not want to own a book bearing the stamp of Jawaharlal Nehru’s Anand Bhawan library. Such a book becomes even more valuable if it happens to bear a note in Nehru’s own hand (Read in District Jail Barreilly, Feb. 1932, J. Nehru). If the book also happens to have been warmly inscribed by Nehru to someone like Lady Diana Menuhin, wife of the great 20th century violinist, Yehudi Menuhin, it becomes all the more precious to a collector. One such book, The Little Clay Cart, the English translation of Sudraka’s Sanskrit play Mrichhakatikam, was sold by the Maggs Bros. of London some years ago for a whopping sum of £1500 (Rs 1,23,000). An ordinary copy of that book without such associations with Nehru would hardly have fetched £ 5 (Rs 400).

(B N Uniyal has worked as a journalist with several newspapers. These days he is working on a book, Collectible India.)

The Financial Express : The show-stopper catalogues

Glossy and expensive, they are today almost as much of a collectible as the painting they endorse

PRIYA KANUNGO

Posted online: Sunday, June 17, 2007 at 0000 hours IST

It used to be the size of a postcard. There would be a couple of pictures jostling for space, with a few hundred words on the artist thrown in. But that was many years ago. Now, the humble art catalogue has morphed into quite a show-stopper.

For one, art catalogues have become glossier than ever before and have many more pages. And, every new catalogue tries to outdo its predecessor in design, photography and printing. As far as the money spent on it — well, no one’s counting. The reason? It’s boom time in the Indian art market these days. Whether it is an artist spending from his own pocket or a gallery that is pulling out all stops to get that oh-so-sophisticated catalogue made, the fact is that all eyes are on the millions that are going to come from the exhibition/auction.

As artist Sanjay Bhattacharyya says: “Earlier, my catalogue used to be a folder with a maximum of three folds and may be two pictures. Now, cost is not such a big constraint as paintings sell, unlike earlier, when they didn’t.”

It is usually the galleries come out with truly high-end catalogues, which are often turned into books. This is simply because their budgets are bigger. Says Neville Tuli, Chairman, Osian’s: “We print about 2,000 catalogues for each auction and the budget is around Rs 12-15 lakh. Books with great passion aren’t made with just high production and design values. There has to be a generosity with knowledge and it’s a sharing process. This is still to emerge in India.”

So, what should a catalogue have? Ideally, good prints of some of the paintings that are on exhibit, the artist’s biodata, price lists and a write up on the artist’s work by an art historian. As former bureaucrat and writer Ashok Vajpeyi says: “Exhibitions come and go, but catalogues remain. It is actually a form of documentation.” Today, critical appraisal of an artist’s work is pretty much absent. Catch any writing that cites something negative about the artist. Gayatri Sinha, who has essayed many a piece on artists, defends it thus: “If you don’t endorse the artist’s work, you shouldn’t agree to do the writing.” So, posterity gets to read only the good about the artist. The bad gets covered in the haze of the past. How much documentation is that, then?

About the design and production of catalogues, Parthiv Shah, a graphic designer and photographer, says: “Because of better printing quality, we are now able to give glass effects, print black on black, give more breathing space between images instead of unnecessary layering. Colour correction for paintings is also far better today.” All this put together and catalogues are becoming collector’s items, as film posters have been for a while now. Consider this: Shah says the catalogue on painter Benode Behari Mukherjee that he designed was marked at Rs 6,000. Then there are those, like artist Subroto Kundu’s, which have an original work bound together with the other 100-odd pages… This being the trend, it’s not far-fetched to say that catalogues themselves could be on the auction block in the near future.

As of now, though, catalogues are published to give details of the exhibition/auction to collectors, the media, art critics and artists. According to Arun Vadehra of Vadehra Art Gallery, “Catalogues are normally given free. We have produced 14 books to date, and most of them are given free. This is a cost that we bear keeping in mind the huge volumes that exist in the art market.” But as someone on the art circuit says: “If you don’t disclose your credentials, chances are you have to pay for the catalogue.” And the price tag is usually Rs 200-300 for most of them today. In all of this, the artist is the one who’s never had it so good. He’s making a killing from the colours that he splashes on the canvas. He’s getting good mileage from the reams that are being written on him. The catalogue lives on, for art lovers and his grandchildren to pour over some day. Until then, some say, it makes a great calling card for the artist.

The Economic Times : Saffronart's sale of Indian masters rakes in Rs 37 cr

ASHOKE NAG
TIMES NEWS NETWORK[ FRIDAY, JUNE 15, 2007 04:05:58 AM]

KOLKATA: Leading domestic art auctioneer Saffronart has scaled a total value of Rs 37 crore in its summer sale of modern Indian masters. Eighty per cent of the 130 lots on offer, translating to 104 lots, have been bought by buyers from India and abroad.

Tyeb Mehta’s Kali has swung the highest price of Rs 4 crore. “There has been a very strong participation from new buyers with one-third of the bidders being new collectors. We saw a good deal of presence from mainstream international buyers.

Based on an assessment, this segment of buyers has seen a rise of around 25%,” Dinesh Vazirani, director, Saffronart, told ET. Together with Tyeb Mehta, the other top prices on the list are SH Raza’s Terre Rouge at Rs 2.4 crore, another Raza titled Amar Jiva which was placed at Rs 2.3 crore and MF Husain’s Three Horses which went for Rs 2.1 crore.

At the same time, those hovering below the Rs 2 crore mark are Arpita Singh — Rs 1.55 crore, Husain’s Faces fetched around Rs 1.15 crore. FN Souza’s St John the Baptist fetched Rs 1 crore, while Rameswar Broota hovered at Rs 1 crore, Ram Kumar and J Swaminathan stood at Rs 65 lakh and Rs 74 lakh respectively. Krishen Khanna’s Season of Watermelons sold for Rs 78 lakh, and Bikash Bhattacharjee’s King With Flute went for Rs 35 lakh, while a Sakti Burman painting sold for Rs 46 lakh and a J Sabavala for Rs 58 lakh.

“An artist like Manjit Bawa has shot past his presale estimates and enjoyed prices between Rs 40 lakh and Rs 50 lakh. In the same breath, a slightly lower range artist such as Lalu Prasad Shaw sports a price of Rs 10 lakh,” Mr Vazirani said. “Sculptures also boast of decent prices. While well-known sculptor Himmat Shah has drawn a final price of Rs 63 lakh for his bronze sculpture, even a first-timer like Adi Davierwalla has attracted a price of Rs 36 lakh,” he added.

“Saffronart’s sale of Rs 37 crore ($9.2 million), is the highest among all the summer sales of Indian art till now. What we find is that between the band of Rs 2 crore and below, the market seems to be growing very fast. In this category, 75% of the lots sold above the higher estimates. This shows that the number of buyers in that section is growing substantially. Eventually, many of these buyers will migrate up to the Rs 4 crore level,” Mr Vazirani said.

According to him, these buyers, at the moment, are positioned in the entry point category. They want to savour the experience of acquiring art. “My general impression is that the market, at this point of time, has consolidated in the range of Rs 2 - 4 crore. Buyers have become discerning and will only climb to a higher level when they come upon a painting they really want to buy. The market is reshifting,” Mr Vazirani said.

On the complexion of the buyer mix, he said that non - Indians have mostly come in from the US and Europe. In step, buyers in general, have stepped in from Hong Kong, UAE, Singapore, UK, Germany and France.