Contemporary Indian Art Rakes in Millions

M.F. Husain, Raza, Souza and More…

Recession? What recession?

An untitled painting by M.F. Husain just sold in auction in New York for over a cool million dollars – $1,058,500 to be exact, over five times the estimated price. ‘Gestation’ by H.S. Raza, which was estimated at $600-000 and 800-000,  fetched $ 1,202,500. An untitled  Manjit Bawa sold for $602,500, double the pre-sale estimate.

Prices for art around the world including modern and contemporary Indian art peaked in 2007-2008.  “At its peak, the Indian art market activity was dominated by art fund and speculative Asian buyers,” says noted New York art collector Umesh Gaur. “The speculative mania in Indian art market has corrected dramatically in the last 18 months.”

Contemporary Indian art is certainly the comeback kid if the auction results at Christies, Sotheby’s and the online auction house Saffronart are any indication. The recently concluded sales during Asia Week revealed a healthy appetite amongst collectors for buying the best of Indian modern and contemporary art after the slowdown experienced immediately after the economic downturn.

Sotheby’s sold 74 contemporary Indian paintings for $5.4 million, including an Untitled painting from 1955 by MF Husain which achieved the highest price of the day when it fetched $1,058,500, over five times the estimate. Sotheby’s auction included the Emanuel Schlesinger Collection of which all the works sold, totaling $ 921,650 against an estimate of $237/352,000. A Tyeb Mehta Untitled painting from 1959 from the Schlesinger Collection went for $566,000 although it was estimated for $100/120,000.

The Untitled Manjit Bawa which went for $602,500 set a world record for a painting at auction by the artist. Zara Porter Hill, International Head of Indian Art at Sotheby’s, says, “It is by far the most important work by Manjit Bawa to have appeared at auction in the past 10 years and it attracted interest from all around the world.” She notes about the high prices achieved for the art, “These results again show the appetite for good quality works with distinguished provenance offered at attractive estimates.”

It was a similar story of buzz and big sales at Christie’s where a swirl of collectors, dealers, and buyers filled the vast space of Christie’s for an animated evening of cocktails to view the collection. You were bumping into collectors, art consultants and gallery owners, many of whom had traveled from around the world for the event.

Syed Haider Raza’s Gestation, painted in 1989, brought in $1,202,500 at Christie’s. Other big names which brought in big bucks were Maqbool Fida Husain, whose Sita Hanuman, painted in 1979, sold for $842,500, Akbar Padamsee, whose Jeune femme aux cheveux noirs, la tête inclinée, painted in 1962, sold for $578,500, though estimated at $250,000-350,000. Blue Abstract by Vasudeo S. Gaitonde, painted in 1965, was estimated at $ 250,000-350,000 but sold for $554,500.

Yet another great master, the late Francis Newton Souza was in demand. His Beasts of Prey, painted in 1963, sold for $458,500. It was almost as if collectors realize that time is running out, and the time to acquire these icons of Indian art is now. An interesting fact was that many individual buyers were active in the sales this year, rather than museums or dealers, and even more telling was the fact that many collectors were Indian, laying claim on their heritage. At the exhibition before the sales you could also spot many Chinese and Korean collectors too, as the great value of Indian contemporary art gets more internationally known.

Sonal Singh, Associate Vice president of Modern and contemporary Art at Christies perhaps summed it up when she noted that a number of new and established collectors from India and many other countries actively bid on the works. She said the high prices and enthusiasm showed “how the market had come to recognize and value really good quality works. These demonstrate the maturing of the market and the collectors’ tastes.”

Hugo Weihe, International Specialist for South Asian Modern and contemporary art says of the competitive bidding and the active participation of many individual collectors, “It was fantastic to witness so many new, as well as established clients in the room, on the phones, and on Christie’s LIVE™ making the atmosphere in the room very energetic.”

The auction world was also buzzing online with Saffronart, which is a large online fine-art auction house, selling contemporary art in its Spring Sale for $4.6 million, with 60 percent of the sold lots exceeding their high estimates. Akbar Padamsee’s 1953 portrait, Prophet which sold for $278,875, more than triple its higher estimate; M.F. Husain’s 1970s Untitled which went for over $ 400,000; Subodh Gupta’s Doot, which sold for $391,000, and F.N. Souza’s Decomposing Head which sold for $350,750, exceeding its high estimate of $ 250,000.

Dinesh Vazirani, CEO of Saffronart, credited the strong sales to the renewed confidence of the growing collector base for Indian art: “The results from the auction indicate a consistent demand from collectors for top quality and rare works with important provenance.”

As  Umesh Gaur notes, this demand in Indian art is being led by the senior artists such as M. F. Husain, Sayed Raza, Manjit Bawa, Akbar Padamsee and F. N. Souza: “One can compare this Indian art rally to a new bull phase in financial stock markets.  Significant advances in financial markets are invariably led by blue chip stocks. So it is to be expected that an initial advance in the Indian art market would be led by well established modern Indian artists.”

Betrayed by Wall Street and burnt by the inconsistencies of the financial markets in the past year, art collectors seem to be placing their faith in the world of aesthetics. Art may well be the new gold, the diamonds and jewels people tended to hoard away for a rainy day.

(C) Lavina Melwani

Photos courtesy: Christie’s, Sotheby’s and Saffronart.