London Calling: Prices Escalate for Secondary Artists

During the past few years it has become rather commonplace for the PAG Masters to steal the show at auctions, generating heavy bidding and hefty prices. This might be changing. Last week’s sales held at Christie’s, Bonham’s, and Sotheby’s in London may have signaled a new trend in Indian contemporary art, as works by secondary artists lit up the sales boards.

While continuing to sell for hundreds of thousands of dollars, even more—a Raza went for $1.4 million—many of the works by Souza, Husain, and other legendary painters were passed, seemingly in favor of India’s “second-tier” artists. Names like George Keyt, B. Prabha, Jamil Naqsh, Rameshwar Broota, Jayashree Chakravarty, and Subodh Gupta far surpassed their estimates at Christie’s; at Bonham’s add the names Sakti Burman and Bhupen Khakhar to that list. Paintings by Mukul Chandra Dey, K. C. S. Paniker, Badri Narayan, Sohan Qadri, Satish Gujral, Sheela Gowda, and Justin Ponmany did exceptionally well at Sotheby’s.

Perhaps the average collector is being squeezed out of the market for PAG paintings because of their prices—half of the Souzas’ up for sale at Bonham’s, which included works of various mediums—did not sell. Maybe the torrid love affair for “anything Indian” is driving the secondary market for other less-legendary artists, with speculators betting money that they, too, will become the next hot trend. Whatever the case may be, it can definitely be stated that this genre shows no sign of cooling off.

Time will tell how high prices will climb in auctions during the latter half of 2007. Hopefully, the artists mentioned above, among others, will continue to bask in the art world’s spotlight.