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