Osian’s Gets 2008 Off and Running

The new year got an early kick-start as far as prices go as Osian’s Mumbai presented their Indian Modern and Contemporary 100 Years of Art sale on Saturday, January 19. Total take for the first major auction event of the year was over just over $8,000,000 USD (converted from INR at the time of this writing) with several works garnering hefty prices Indian art collectors have come to expect in recent years.

Top draws were Perception XV by Jagdish Swaminathan and S. H. Raza's Encounter that both went down at a final bid of nearly $800,000. Case in point that Indian masterpieces continue to appreciate nicely is that the Swaminathan went up for sale at Sotheby’s in 2006 where it sold for half as much. Other masters of the Progressive Artists Group also fared well, as per the norm of late, as works by Tyeb Mehta, F N Souza, and M F Hussain also crossed the half million-dollar mark. Contemporary artists Pestonji Bomanji, K Khosla, P T Reddy, S G Vasudev, Sanat Chatterjee were among younger painters whose pieces also sold well on this day in Mumbai.

The Bengal school section likewise did well with artists such as Sanat Chatterjee, Ganesh Pyne, Bikash Bhatacharjee, Ganesh Haloi, Shyamala Dutta Ray and Jaya Ganguly all receiving solid prices for their selected works up for sale. And was a great day for Tagores' works, as both Abnindranath and Rabindranath Tagore paintings achieved new highs.

The 168 lots included important works from the Dr Suhridchandra Collection and Mukund and Neerja Lath Collections. And while the emphasis seems to remain on the economic aspect of Indian modern and contemporary art, perhaps the focus may be shifting to a more critical and knowledge-based review of art, paving the way for the growing global expansion of Indian talent and creativity. Spring auctions may prove this to be the case.