A requiem for art? Kishore Singh / Business standard New Delhi July 25, 2006

A requiem for art?

Kishore Singh / Business standard New Delhi July 25, 2006




AUCTION: The fall of the gavel at the Rs 17 crore Osian's auction failed to thrill collectors, but opened up a new direction in film memorabilia.

Consider these facts:

· For those familiar with art in India, the July 20 auction in the capital by Osian’s was probably its weakest collection ever to be shown — and auctioned.
· At a time when every auction has been making waves for record prices commanded by works of art, the Osian’s sale was a lacklustre event, and even the bidding lacked energy. Only some months back, Indian art circles were agog at the price a work by Amrita Sher-gil had fetched — an astonishing Rs 6.5 crore. Therefore, when on Thursday a collector picked up a work (okay, a small work) for Rs 1.2 crore, for many it was not dissimilar to the Sensex crash.

Was the market correcting itself? After all, there were going to be limited opportunities to bid for a Sher-gil — so why wasn’t there active jostling for the painting?

Nor was that the only jolt. Other masters sold without a flurry of bids, for amounts less than what punters had bet on — Tyeb Mehta Rs 3 crore, V S Gaitonde Rs 2.4 crore, M F Husain Rs 1.3 crore, and two Ramkumars for Rs 42 lakh and Rs 60 lakh (all prices are gavel or bid prices).

Several works were returned unsold to the house, and a large number of artists — not “unknowns”, but not part of the popular auction circuit either, commanded less than arresting prices.

To be fair, this wasn’t part of Osian’s “Masterpieces” series, and as part of the ABC (or Art, Book & Cinema) series, popular works — books, cinema memorabilia — “were attempting to piggyback on the appeal of contemporary art”, according to Osian’s chairman Neville Tuli.

Tuli’s argument — valid to an extent — was to make available works by artists who are not so well known, and gain them recognition. “It was a conscious decision to include artists people were not buying,” he said.

“I am not concerned about what is saleable today because in 3-5 years the market will have changed and collectors will be kicking themselves for not having bought a Hemanta Mishra for Rs 4 lakh!”

A frisson of excitement ran through the bidders and onlookers when the Chittaprosad (‘Lovers’) series came up for auction, rivalled, possibly, only by the more frenzied bidding for posters and other “printed” materials including a set of 25 stills from the film, Mughal-e-Azam (Claire de Boer outbid gallerist-dealer Ashish Anand at Rs 10 lakh).

“India doesn’t have a history of collectors of film memorabilia,” said Tuli, “but I can guarantee you that a year-and-a-half from now, if the same collection comes up for auction, it will fetch over Rs 1 crore from the market.”

Clearly, then, to the question whether Indian art prices are plateauing, Tuli says they’re consolidating (but also says the skew where a Rabindranath Tagore sells for Rs 10 lakh while a Jagannath Panda fetches Rs 25 lakh needs to be corrected), while the market for popular culture is just opening up, and books could be the next big opportunity.

But the final word might well have to wait till September when “Rs 200 crore of Indian art” will jostle for buyers at auctions by Osian’s, Saffronart, Christie’s, Sotheby’s and Bonham’s.

Whether any more “world records for Indian art” will be made then will depend on whether collectors who seem to have taken a breather in the dizzy market turn competitive again.

“After all,” says Tuli, “there are only a handful of collectors who will pay over Rs 1 crore for a painting.”