The price curve of Indian art is shooting north in the global market because of ‘increased consciousness’ about it, say experts. This has been brought about by greater visibility of art and artists from the country and easy access to relevant information about Indian art from the internet, they say. “Indian art is becoming a part of international consciousness, which is why we have seen a spectacular growth in this field,” Yamini Mehta, director of modern and contemporary Indian art at the London-based Christie’s, told IANS on e-mail. “Boundaries are becoming more fluid. We are seeing more Indian artists being represented in international museum exhibitions and art fairs. The exposure is helping create newer collectors who actively seek out works by the best of Indian artists to add to their collections,” Mehta said. On June 11, a painting by F.N. Souza, an Indian artist who spent the better part of his life in New York, sold for $2.5 million, while an untitled painting by Tyeb Mehta (Figure in a Rickshaw) fetched 982,050 pounds setting new price records at the Christie’s auction in London. Five of contemporary artist Subodh Gupta’s works were also sold in the same auction at record prices. Gupta’s ‘Bucket,’ an abstract canvas with the symbolic motif of his trademark bucket, was sold for 121,250 pounds while his ‘Magic Wands’ and ‘Cotton Wicks’ were sold for 169,250 pounds and 15,000 pounds respectively. Twelve artists set new records in terms of prices at the auction in London. According to experts, Indian art in general had a higher price profile in almost every international art show this year. A New Delhi-based dealer, Nature Morte, sold a set of three sculptures by Gupta for nearly $1 million, while a painting by rising star T.V. Santosh went out to a British collector for $170,000 at the prestigious Art Basel, the largest fair of modern and contemporary art in Switzerland. Gupta’s seven-metre wide ‘Triptych’ sold for $1 million in the same fair. In March 2008, M.F. Husain’s ‘Battle of Ganga and Jamuna’ sold for $1.6 million in New York. Auction houses and dealers attribute the boom to growing consciousness and appreciation of According to Mehta, the new breed of collectors, who are armed with more money, are incredibly well informed. “They usually look for a combination of three factors in an art work – lineage, the artist and its freshness. “For instance, the ‘The Birth’ by F.N. Souza which sold for a record-breaking price of $2.5 million, had the combination of all the three: it was a large museum quality masterpiece by one of the giants in Indian art and completely fresh to the market,” Mehta said. The freshness of the artwork, experts claimed, was instrumental in pushing up its price. Peter Nagy, director of Nature Morte Gallery in Delhi, which sold almost all its works at the Basel fair, says the increase in price is directly related to the demand for the works and the increased attention that the international art world is paying to contemporary art works coming out of India today.

The post Northward bound first appeared on Indian Art News.

The price curve of Indian art is shooting north in the global market because of “increased consciousness” about it, say experts. This has been brought about by greater visibility of art and artists from the country and easy access to relevant information about Indian art from the internet, they say.
“Indian art is becoming a part of international consciousness, why is why we have seen a spectacular growth in this field,” Yamini Mehta, director of modern and contemporary Indian art at the London-based Christie’s, told IANS on e-mail.
“Boundaries are becoming more fluid. We are seeing more Indian artists being represented in international museum exhibitions and art fairs. The exposure is helping create newer collectors who actively seek out works by the best of Indian artists to add to their collections,” Mehta said.
On June 11, a painting by F.N. Souza, an Indian artist who spent the better part of his life in New York, sold for $2.5 million, while an untitled painting by Tyeb Mehta (Figure in a Rickshaw) fetched 982,050 pounds setting new price records at the Christie’s auction in London.
Five of contemporary artist Subodh Gupta’s works were also sold in the same auction at record prices. Gupta’s “Bucket”, an abstract canvas with the symbolic motif of his trademark bucket, was sold for 121,250 pounds while his “Magic Wands” and “Cotton Wicks” were sold for 169,250 pounds and 15,000 pounds respectively.
Twelve artists set new records in terms of prices at the auction in London.
According to experts, Indian art in general had a higher price profile in almost every international art show this year.
A New Delhi-based dealer, Nature Morte, sold a set of three sculptures by Gupta for nearly $1 million, while a painting by rising star T.V. Santosh went out to a British collector for $170,000 at the prestigious Art Basel, the largest fair of modern and contemporary art in Switzerland. Gupta’s seven-metre wide “Triptych” sold for $1 million in the same fair.
In March 2008, M.F. Husain’s “Battle of Ganga and Jamuna” sold for $1.6 million in New York.
Auction houses and dealers attribute the boom to growing consciousness and appreciation of Indian art internationally.
According to Mehta, the new breed of collectors, who are armed with more money, are incredibly well informed. “They usually look for a combination of three factors in an art work – lineage, the artist and its freshness.
“For instance, the ‘The Birth’ by F.N. Souza which sold for a record-breaking price of $2.5 million, had the combination of all the three: it was a large museum quality masterpiece by one of the giants in Indian art and completely fresh to the market,” Mehta said.
The freshness of the artwork, experts claimed, was instrumental in pushing up its price.
Peter Nagy, director of Nature Morte Gallery in Delhi, which sold almost all its works at the Basel fair, says the increase in price is directly related to the demand for the works and the increased attention that the international art world is paying to contemporary art works coming out of India today.
“This increased attention increases the demand and hence the prices go up,” Nagy told IANS.
Citing Basel as an example, Nagy said the “audience in Switzerland wanted unique Indian works and were not interested in works and prints by Indian artists. However, the prices of the works were dictated by the prices set in India”.
Another factor that determines the price tag is the stiff neck-on-neck bids, especially at auctions, and the wide client base. The competition among bidders triggers an artificial increase in prices.
The phenomenon is also gradually becoming applicable to Indian art, especially in international sales.
Describing the nature of the Christie’s London auction of Asian art, Mehta said the auction hall was packed right from the beginning with clients from across the globe.
“There was also spirited bidding on telephones and through Christie’s LIVE, which is a new platform for our clients to watch the live auction in real time and bid online from the comfort of home or office,” Mehta said.
According to an estimate by the Christie’s, the market for Indian art gathered steam over the last decade, totalling an impressive $42 million in 2006 from just $656,000 in a sale in 2000.
Before that, price milestones were generally one-time. In 2005, Tyeb Mehta’s “Mahisasura” sold for a record $1,584,000.

The post Exposure makes Indian art prices gallop in global mart first appeared on Indian Art News.

It’s a somewhat ironic truism that every time the markets act shaky, the price of art begins to zip-zap-zoom. So when the Sensex in India began to crumble, punters could have pointed out with reasonable surety that the Christie’s auction of South Asian modern and contemporary art in London on Wednesday afternoon would deliver some surprising results.

But even they couldn’t have anticipated the leapfrogging prices, and certainly not that a single work of art, a 1955 painting by FN Souza called Birth, would deliver a harvest of Rs 10.6 crore. At $2.48 million, it is the highest price ever paid for a painting by an Indian artist, and bests Christie’s previous record of $1.6 million for Tyeb Mehta’s Mahisasura in 2005.

At the same venue, Tyeb Mehta’s Untitled work of a figure on a rickshaw too grossed Rs 8.2 crore, easily his highest at a public sale.

The total take from the London auction was $25,825,146, and set world auction records for 12 artists that included, besides Souza and Mehta, Indian artists Subodh Gupta (Rs 5 crore, his highest for an Untitled sculpture), Ashim Purkayastha (Rs 91 lakh), Justin Ponmany (Rs 91 lakh), Nataraj Sharma, Navjot Altaf, HG Arunkumar, Dhruvi Acharya, Amjad Ali Talpur, and for Pakistani artists Anwar Saeed and Mudassar Manzoor.

Christie’s international director for Indian art, Hugo Weihe, was ecstatic, claiming the auction “demonstrates the exciting growth of this market”, and that “London is a key platform for the category”.

But New Delhi-based gallerist Arun Vadehra at least wasn’t surprised by the results. “It’s amazing, yes,” he confirmed from London post the sale, “but it’s clearly a quality painting by Souza of the kind that hasn’t appeared in the market before.” “A Souza of this scale hasn’t ever before been in an auction,” agrees Ganieve Grewal, representative, Christie’s India. “Souza was known for his portraiture, landscapes and still life, and this painting has all three elements, so artistically it is a very striking piece.”

That its provenance has a history that shows its inclusion for a Guggenheim award, could hardly have hurt the final validation of the price it fetched.

But still: Rs 10.6 crore? “Souza,” reasons Vadehra, “was a colleague of Francis Bacon, whose work sold last year for $6 million, so why should Souza’s work fall behind anyone else’s?” Extolling the Tyeb Mehta record-breaking painting too as a work of rare quality, he insists that similar works by SH Raza or MF Husain could command as much just as easily “because there are people out there with money who want the best quality”.

“I know of this painting by Souza at the Tate Museum that, if it ever sold in the market, would easily fetch $5 million, and there is a Tyeb Mehta triptych at the National Gallery of Modern Art that could as easily fetch $10 million.”

Vadehra joins a growing band of gallerists who claim that the market for Indian art had not turned sluggish in recent times but was reacting to works of poor quality. “Overall, works by modern artists have broken previous records in the last few years,” points out Grewal. “People are willing to pay for good work.”

Meanwhile, at Christie’s, they’re rubbing their hands in glee. “We are now looking forward to offering Syed Haider Raza’s La Terre at Christie’s London Post War and Contemporary Art Evening sale on 30 June,” says Hugo Weihe. “It’s another fantastic, museum-quality work,” says Grewal from London, “we think it will sell at a record price too.” Art sellers, or those consigning their works for auction, must also be hoping that the stock market stays crazy — at least till then.

That its provenance has a history that shows its inclusion for a Guggenheim award, could hardly have hurt the final validation of the price it fetched.

But still: Rs 10.6 crore? “Souza,” reasons Vadehra, “was a colleague of Francis Bacon, whose work sold last year for $6 million, so why should Souza’s work fall behind anyone else’s?” Extolling the Tyeb Mehta record-breaking painting too as a work of rare quality, he insists that similar works by SH Raza or MF Husain could command as much just as easily “because there are people out there with money who want the best quality”.

“I know of this painting by Souza at the Tate Museum that, if it ever sold in the market, would easily fetch $5 million, and there is a Tyeb Mehta triptych at the National Gallery of Modern Art that could as easily fetch $10 million.”

Vadehra joins a growing band of gallerists who claim that the market for Indian art had not turned sluggish in recent times but was reacting to works of poor quality.

“Overall, works by modern artists have broken previous records in the last few years,” points out Grewal. “People are willing to pay for good work.”Meanwhile, at Christie’s, they’re rubbing their hands in glee.

“We are now looking forward to offering Syed Haider Raza’s La Terre at Christie’s London Post War and Contemporary Art Evening sale on 30 June,” says Hugo Weihe. “It’s another fantastic, museum-quality work,” says Grewal from London, “we think it will sell at a record price too.”

Art sellers, or those consigning their works for auction, must also be hoping that the stock market stays crazy — at least till then.

The post Souza`s Birth sells for record Rs 10.6 cr first appeared on Indian Art News.

The post Subodh Gupta joins million-dollar league with Christie’s sale first appeared on Indian Art News.