Prices Remain Steady at New York Auctions

Sotheby’s and Christie’s held their annual Indian modern and contemporary art spring sales this week in the Big Apple with very few surprises—even with two works breaking the million dollar mark.

There were no great shakes at Sotheby’s Indian Art Wednesday morning session. Of the 89 lots up for bid, 27% went unsold, including three works by Krishen Khanna, three by F. N. Souza, two Akbar Padamsees’, two Jogen Chowdhurys’, a Raza and one M. F. Husain. Still, the 65 pieces that went down the hammer garnered a total take of $5,106,875USD*.

The big winner of the day was a Husain oil on canvas dated 1953, a seminal period when the artist was still discovering his language and style. Composed with the rhythmic, confident line that later became his trademark, the Untitled piece sold for $409,000. Not far behind was Souza’s Head of a Man, which finished at $313,000. Seven other paintings from members of the Progressive Artists Group finished in the quarter million dollar range, hardly eyebrow-raising after the past few years of escalating prices.

Rounding out the big numbers, Jagdish Swaminathan's iconic 1971 Untitled landscape featuring flat planes of saturated yellows and orange delineating and detailing a deeply spiritual reverence for the unrealized universe, sold over pre-estimated values at $229,000. An unsettling rare self-portrait and a comment on the inevitable decay of the human body by Rameshwar Broota finished at $169,000; Jehangir Sabavala’s oil and acrylic on canvas, The Bridge, for $163,000; and Anjlie Ela Menon’s Goat People for $121,000.

Other artists faring well were three oils from B. Phabha (selling in the range of $32,200 to $44,200), George Keyt ($32,200/$20,000), Shanti Dave ($25,000), Gulam Rasool Santosh ($51,400), Sakti Burman ($67,000), Manu Parekh ($49,000), Avinash Chandra ($63,400), A. R. Chugtai ($79,000), Ambadas ($46,600), and Arpana Caur ($49,000).

Thursday’s 10:00AM South Asian Modern + Contemporary Art auction at Christie's produced more of the same, although two resoundingly broke the seven-figure mark. M. F. Husain’s The Battle of Ganga and Jamuna, one of his most significant works to appear at auction, sold for a staggering $1,609,000. Ram Kumar’s oil on board, Vagabond, whose forlorn and isolated figures with strained postures are linked to the angular jagged shapes of the cityscape and buildings, sold for $1,161,000. Coming in at a distant third was a Tyeb Mehta work at a still respectable $657,000.

Works by other PAG masters in various mediums also sold well, as has been the trend the past half-decade. What is becoming the thing to watch in Indian art, however, are the prices being generated by those who are following in their footsteps. Younger artists such as T. V. Santhosh for example, whose oil on canvas diptych fetched $337,000, an Untitled for $85,000; Rameshwar Broota’s Traces of Man I, for $265,000; Atul Dodiya’s Untitled work of ironic juxtaposition for $217,000, his Red Loves Peas for $157,000.

And on down the line--Ganesh Pyne’s Untitled tempera on canvas work symbolizing his tranquil-obsession with death sold for $127,000; Jagannath Panda’s Untitled oil on canvas featuring a peacock being forced out of its natural habitat finished at $133,000, his Behind the Meeting Place II for $109,000; Chintan Upadhyay’s New Breed Hybrid for $75,400; a Jitish Kallat and a Jamini Roy each selling for $73,000.

At Christie’s, only 17 of the available 131 lots were passed, with a total final total take of $10,974,600.

The New York sales may have proven two things as we make it through the early part of 2008—art prices by the Indian masters are not coming down, while works by contemporary artists seem to be catching up . . . fast.

*All prices in US Dollars include the buyer's premium and are rounded to the nearest dollar.

Younger Artists Soar at Saffronart On-Line Auction

For those who have been following Indian contemporary art over the past few years, you can probably remember when the market was idling on the runway, waiting to take off. It wasn’t that long ago when Progressive Artist Group works shocked the market by garnering prices in the six-figure range; today, it no surprise when a Souza, Vaitonde, Mehta, or Raza sells for over a million dollars. On March 12 –13, Saffronart’s spring online auction may have shown that post-PAG artists may be the next group waiting in the wings for a similar surge upward in prices.

Works by Subodh Gupta, born in 1964, were an example of this surge, who along with Atul Dodiya, born in 1959, Shibu Natesan, 1966, T. V. Santhosh, 1968, Jagannath Panda, 1970, and Surendran Nair, born in 1956, are getting prices unimagined not very long ago.

Nair’s commentary on identity and sociopolitical change, his oil on canvas, Doctrine of the Forest: An Actor at Play (Cuckoonebulopolis) painted in 2007, was the big winner of the sale, selling for a shattering $558,969 USD*. Not far behind was an untitled oil on canvas painted by Subodh Gupta that took a final tally of $477,250. For good measure, his painting Let Me Make My Damn Art, estimated to sell in the $60,000 - $70,000 range, instead went down for a whopping $437,000. And his sculpture of stainless steel kitchenware entitled Feast for Hundred and Eight Gods 2 closed at $209,875. Panda’s Untitled acrylic and fabric on canvas, fell at a remarkable $353,625, estimated pre-sale at $65,790 - 78,950. Natesan’s hyper-realistic images in Each One Teach One, an oil on linen, doubled estimates and sold for $281,448.

Santhosh, too, is making his presence felt on the modern Indian art scene—two oils on canvas, an Untitled and Across An Unresolved Story II, containing thermographic, x-ray like imagery, sold for $232,875 each. Predictably, Atul Dodiya’s works did well, although he was a bit overshadowed his contemporaries. His piece Vansha Vriksha , a watercolor, acrylic and marble dust on paper sold for $208,150; his Bapu Breaking his Fast, an acrylic on canvas, for $104,650; his enamel paint and synthetic varnish on laminate titled Shri Jivan Chaya of Gandhi Nagar (with 17th Wife board Madhuben and 18th Wife Jayashriben) for $172,500.

Three other works, Death of a Snake Charmer by Bharti Kher (born in 1969), Baiju Parthan’s (1956) diptych of cryptic images called Source Code - Benedict, and Anju Dodiya’s Daphne, also broke the five-figure mark. Not far behind in the upper four-figures were works by G. R. Iranna, Chittrovanu Mazumdar, Rashid Rana, Jittish Kallat, N. S. Harsha, Sudhanshu Sutar, and Riyas Komu.

Every one of the 119 works in the two-day event was sold, with three quarters of them surpassing their estimated values. There were no PAG works in the catalogue for this, one of the first Indian art auctions of 2008. One that went very, very well without their contribution.

* (Prices inclusive of Buyers Premium)

Tamarind Celebrates Asian Contemporary Art Week

Tamarind Art proudly presents Creative Circuit: Indian Contemporaries, a museum-quality show of paintings and sculptures from the Charugundla collection featuring some of the most provocative artists in today’s Indian art scene. These works will showcase some of the contemporary artists who are currently setting the standards in the Indian art market, and a few whose names may not be well known but are poised to become so.

Featured artists include Samir Aich, Bikash Bhattacharjee, Jayashree Chakravarty, Avinash Chandra, Sarbari Roy Chowdhury, Sumana Chowdhury, Samit Das, Pratul Dash, Ganesh Haloi, Prabhakar Kolte, Mahjabin Majumdar, Kamal Mitra, Anil Sen, and Hema Upadhyay.

Opening reception will be 19 March 2008 from 6:00 pm to 9:00 pmRSVP - rsvp@tamarindart.com. The exhibition will run from 19 March – 5 April 2008.

About Asian Contemporary Art Week

Over 100 artists will present their works at 60 special events, including receptions, exhibition-viewings, screenings, artists’ conversations and walkthroughs at 46 leading galleries and museums across New York City. Since its inception in 2001, ACAW continues to respond to the rise in public interest and demand for knowledge about artists producing works both inside and outside of Asia.

Participants include an incredibly diverse and broad array of presenting venues, as well as an ever-expanding list of artists from almost every region of Asia. China, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Vietnam, Thailand, India, Pakistan, Indonesia, Iran, Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan, and for the first time, the Middle East: Lebanon, Palestine and Israel.

In its fifth year, ACAW launches a series of talks to highlight the week entitled Artists in Conversation. Nominated by a number of art experts from the region, over 75 leading and emerging artists submitted their portfolios from which 25 were selected by the ACAC to speak about their works and concepts at participating venues.