Superlative Works Get their Due at Sotheby’s

The third and final New York City fall Indian art auction took place on 21st September with Sotheby’s Contemporary Art South Asia sale, and ended the week with quite a buzz. The morning session had 80 lots up for sale; of these, 35 (60%) surpassed their pre-estimated range, with some selling well—very, very well.

Buyers seemed to be in a discriminating mood, more discerning in their tastes, as 21 lots (26%) were passed in favor of break-through artists who are generating prices the PAG did not too long ago. For starters, Zarina Hashmi’s cast paper piece Phool, estimated at $15,000 - $20,000 finished at $73,000*, a Shobha Broota untitled oil on canvas for $61,000 (est. $8,000 - $12,000), and G. Ravinder Reddy’s pigment and gold leaf on terracotta bust for $70,600. Other names making their mark were Jyothi Basu (untitled oil on canvas, $82,600), Jayashree Chakravarty (her large-scale 'scroll' painting Space Within, $61,000), and Rashid Rana (The World is Not Enough, $91,000).

Midway through, bidding skyrocketed for exceptional works by exceptional artists. The final hammer fell for Subodh Gupta’s mixed media life-size sculpture of a family on a Vespa at $277,000, Chintan Upadhyay’s installation with thirty-three sculptures titled New Indians at $529,000, a TV Santhosh oil on canvas for $205,000 (est. $20,000- $30,000), and the show-stopper, Atul Dodiya’s Father, an enamel paint on metal roller shutters, acrylic and marble dust on canvas piece that came in at an eye-popping $601,000 (est. $230,000 - $280,000). Another work by Dodiya, Man From Kabul sold later on for $313,000.

Other artists who may be making a name for themselves, as this sale suggests, are Ashim Purkayastha, Abir Karmakar, Jitish Kallat, Justin Ponmany, Sonia Khurana, Shibu Natesan, GR Iranna, and Farhad Hussain.

Collectors and dealers of Indian contemporary art might be driven by demand for strong artworks with an outstanding provenance, created by talented artists; whatever the case, total sales for this day were a very nice $3,202,300. Include Sotheby’s and Christie’s auctions earlier in the week, and that figure rises just shy of $20,000,000. A very good three-day tally for artwork of this still-growing and dynamic art market.

* All prices include Buyer's Premium

Christie’s NY Brings Out the Buyers

For those who thought that prices might have reached their peak and may be starting on a downward trend, a paraphrased quote from American humorist Mark Twain might be in order: “The report of my (insert ‘the Indian art market’) demise has been greatly exaggerated”—at least at Christie’s September 20th South Asian Modern + Contemporary Art auction. Buyers threw all caution to the wind during the morning session, which brought in a total of $10,115,050*.

Consider that of the 110 lots sold, 70% went down the hammer above their pre-sale estimates. Consider that Arpita Singh’s free-floating composition The Eternal Repose sold for $253,000, TV Santhosh’s Across an Unresolved Story went for $217,000 and his Rats and Man Made Famine III for $91,000 (both estimated at $30,000 - $40,000), and that Atul Dodiya’s oil and acrylic on canvas Three Painters topped out at a whopping $541,000 (est. $150,000 - $200,000). And that’s not counting other “secondary artists” as well as works by the Progressives. It was a great day for the genre.

The morning session began with three Jamini Roy gouaches doubling their estimates, with prices extending early on with MF Husain’s Indian village life-themed Birds-in-Tree that sold for $361,000 and an untitled work for $301,000. Other PAG artists fared as strongly with FN Newton’s sublime depiction of the female form entitled Nude with Fruit surpassing the half million-dollar estimate, selling for $657,000, another untitled nude for $457,000, while his Townscape went for $265,000. Later, three Ram Kumar’s sold for $181,000. $193,000 and $337,000; an SH Raza Bindu for $217,000 and his La Terre for $421,000. Top draw of this sale was Tyeb Mehta’s Mahishasura, which closed at $1,105,000.

Prices sustained throughout, with Chintan Upadhyay’s Sorry Does Not Make Any Difference I falling at $91,000, KCS Paniker’s Words and Symbols for $43,000 (est. $3,000 - $5,000), an Anish Kapoor watercolor for $51,400, Biren De’s April ’73 for $85,000, Bikash Bhattacharjee’s A Social Gathering for $181,000, a Ravinder Reddy polyester, resin, and fiberglass bust for $187,000. The buying surge carried through to the end with an untitled watercolor on paper laid down on cloth by Avinash Chandra selling for $145,000, Shibu Natesan’s Montage I for $157,000, and Rameshwar Broota’s A Chance Encounter for $265,000.

Perhaps the one nadir at Christie’s was that 33 (23%) lots were passed including works by Husain, Souza, Akbar Padamsee, Pabhakar Kolte among some less familiar names; nonetheless, the day’s results suggests that the Indian contemporary art market remains a strong and vibrant one, with no adjustment in values yet.

*All prices quoted include the buyer's premium and are rounded to the nearest dollar

Status Quo at Sotheby’s

New York fall Indian art sales kicked off September 19th at Sotheby’s with no great surprises, as most pieces that were sold came in at their pre-estimated prices. The final total was $6,311,738*, just under the estimated low end, but this would have certainly pushed much higher if 28 of the available 114 lots (25%) were not passed, including big-ticket works by VS Gaitonde, Ram Kumar, FN Souza, and Jogen Chowdhury. Keeping with recent trends, non-Progressive artists continue to perform well and nearly half the lots (45%) were of mediums other than oil on canvas.

Early on, it looked like buyers might be in a no-holds barred spending mood with a Rabindranath Tagore untitled tempera on handmade paper selling for $55,000 (est. $15,000 - $20,000 USD), three Jamini Roy tempera on card doubling their estimates, and an SH Raza watercolor and pencil on paper selling at $37,000, but then the tempo slowed somewhat. Six MF Husains’ sold well—3 over the estimates, 3 reaching them, including his Pagan Mother, an exquisite work painted mostly in blue, with the figure delineated by thick black lines, and highlighted with flashes of white and terracotta that went for $657, 000 (est. $500,000 - $700,000). An Akbar Padamsee emotive untitled nude fell for $181,000, a watercolor by the same artist was passed, and a bronze sculptured head went for $20,000.

After a Gaitonde oil went unsold (est. $500,000 – $700,000), prices rebounded nicely with four SH Razas’ that finished well, including an untitled acrylic on canvas going for $409,000; two Kumars’ going for $181,000 and $145,000 respectively, and most Souza works of various mediums going in their pre-sale range (although four were passed including Still Life with Three Fish, est. at a half millions dollars, high end). Rameshwar Broota’s monochromatic work The Other Space, created by the artist’s unusual and painstaking technique of scraping paint from the canvas, sold well at $601,000. A Jagdish Swaminathan untitled oil fell at $241,000.

Keeping with the latest trend, prices for India’s “second-tier” artists continue to inch upward. Four Shanti Dave oil and encaustic painting sold on average of just under $14,000, an untitled Sohan Qadri for $27,400 (quadrupling estimates), two Prabhakar Barwe enamels for $55,000 and $73,000, a Mohan Samant for $39,400, Abdul-Rahiman Appabhai Almelkar’s Two Women for $23,750, two Badri Narayan works for $22,500 each, and a Bikash Bhattacharjee untitled oil on canvas going down very well at $121,000.

Other names that garnered attention—and good numbers—in this sale included Satish Gujral, Gulam Rasool Santosh, B. Vithal, Reddeppa M. Naidu, Krishnaji Shamrao Kulkarni, Manjit Bawa, Balraj Khanna, Rabin Mondal, and Arpana Caur.

The morning session concluded with ten lots painted pre-20th century, with Herman Linde’s Girl Standing in a Veranda Wearing a Pochampalli Sari the highlight, selling at $133,000.

Overall, interest—and buying—remains high for this genre, although no records were broken on this cool, sunny day in mid-town Manhattan.

* All prices quoted include buyer’s premium