Monday, May 25, 2009

Sotheby to come up with Indian Art Auction in London


The Economic Times
21 May 2009
Ashoke Nag

KOLKATA: Leading auctioneer Sotheby’s is coming up with an Indian art auction in London in mid-June which will bring to the market an assortment of works by leading Modern and Contemporary Indianartists as well as rare Indian Miniatures. A major portion of the works are armed with provenance, having been part of private collections. The 86 lots are expected to bring in the region of £1.2 million. 

"Jogen Chowdhury’s ink and pastel composition Day Dreaming graces the cover of the sale catalogue. Dating from 1979, Day Dreaming is a continuation of a series of works that Chowdhury produced between 1968 and 1976, entitled Reminiscences of a Dream. 

The artist, who trained in both Kolkata and Paris, is best known for his ink works. This work, one of the largest of its type by Chowdhury to come to the market, was never offered at auction before and is estimated at £80,000-100,000," director of Indian art at Sotheby’s, Zara Porter-Hill, told ET in an e-mail from London. 

An Untitled painting by Manjit Bawa is another highlight and is expected to fetch £70,000-100,000. Bawa’s work questions the dynamics of the relationship between humans and the animal world and the icons and myths of both. His distinctive and bold use of colour is rooted in his training as a silk-screen painter and his study of Rajput and Pahari miniature paintings. 

A group of works by the noted Bengal painter Nandalal Bose have come to the market with strong provenance, having been part of the artist’s own private collection. "The four ink and wash works -- entitled Untitled (Ocean Dune), Untitled (Where Cranes Nest), Untitled (Hills Ablaze) and Untitled (Two Shal Trees) were executed in the late 1950s and early 1960s and are full of intense beauty and capture the trajectory of modern India’s cultural development. Each of the four works carries an estimate of £10,000-15,000," Ms Porter-Hill said. 

Among the miniatures on offer is a group of three Mughal illustrations coming from the famed Ehrenfeld Collection. The three miniatures are estimated at £8,000-12,000, £10,000-15,000 and £12,000-18,000. The sale will also offer a selection of works by Contemporary Indian artists such as Rashid Rana and Abir Karmakar and photographic works by Pablo Bartholomew and Atul Bhalla.

Tuesday, May 12, 2009

Artists Featured at Christies


Incase some of you are wondering the kind of works the artists mention below create, here is a glimpse:

Atul Dodiya... 



Jitish Kallat...


T.V. Santosh...




Christie's 2009 sale to feature works of Indian artists


The Economic Times
11 May 2009
Ashoke Nag

KOLKATA: Christie’s 2009 sale of Asian Contemporary Art in end-May in Hong Kong will feature a select group of works by leading artists from the Indian subcontinent. In both an Evening and Day sale, collectors will be presented works of artists such as T.V. Santosh, Jitish Kallat and Atul Dodiya, as well as works by cutting-edge artists on the rise, some of whom are figuring for the first time at auction. 

"Since launching Modern and Contemporary Indian Art sales in New York in 2000, worldwide sales in this category at Christie’s have grown from US$656,000 to over US$45 million in 2008 and we now have regular sales in New York, London and Hong Kong. Our selection later this month in Hong Kong will appeal to a range of buyers from around the world and collectors of all levels," Christie’s representative in India, Menaka Kumari-Shah, told ET. 

The Evening Sale on May 24 offers Christie’s Asian Contemporary Art Evening Sale on May 24 features two seminal paintings by Mumbai-based artists, Jitish Kallat and T.V. Santosh. Having set the world auction record for a work by Jitish Kallat at over HK$1.5 million in May 2008, this sale offers collectors the opportunity to acquire Kallat’s painting Universal Recipient 1 which is estimated at HK$700,000-900,000/US$89,700-115,400. At the same time, Hundred Square Feet of Curses by T.V. Santosh is pegged in the range of HK$500,000-800,000/US$64,100-102,600. 

The Day Sale on May 25 could entice new and seasoned collectors alike with a number of works by both recognised and celebrated artists as well as the category’s rising stars. Being included at auction for the first time is Anirban Mitra, a Kolkata-based artist whose painting High Tide, Low Everywhere is estimated in the band of HK$40,000-60,000/US$5,100-7,700. 

Also on offer are a rare set of stamp works by Ashim Purkayastha, estimated at $60,000-80,000/US$7,700-10,300, where the artist has painted over Indian revenue stamps. 

The Day Sale also includes a canvas by Sunil Gawde, an artist who has received international critical acclaim and is included at this year’s Venice Biennale which opens in June 2009. Also presented is a selection of works in a number of different mediums, including a sculptural installation titled Your Pact of Angst II by T.V. Santosh estimated at HK$180,000-250,000/US$23,100-32,100, photographs by artist and water-environmentalist Atul Bhalla, a watercolour by Atul Dodiya and drawings by Tushar Joag and Mithu Sen.

Sunday, May 10, 2009

Sales drop as Indian art loses stock


Sunday Independent
10 May 2009
Peter De Ionno

Confidence levels in the once- booming market for Indian art have dropped 63 percent since October as prices slide, according to a report published on Thursday by the research company ArtTactic.

ArtTactic’s confidence index for Indian contemporary art alone declined by 90 percent during the same period.

The indexes reflect the balance between optimistic and pessimistic art-market professionals. About a third of respondents believed the market for modern Indian art would rebound within two years. More than half thought demand for contemporary works would take between three and 10 years to recover, said the report.

“Problems first appeared in September 2008, around the time of the Damien Hirst sale,” said Anders Petterson, the founder of ArtTactic, referring to the UK artist’s auction at Sotheby’s that raised £111.5 million (R1.4 billion at Friday’s rate) and coincided with the collapse of Lehman Brothers. – Bloomberg

Friday, May 8, 2009

"The Picasso of India": MF Husain


One can love MF Husain, one can hate MF Husain, but one can't ignore MF Husain. 

The Early Years: Maqbool Fida Husain was born on September 17,1915 in Pandharpur, MP. His mother died when he was barely 2 years old. Husain moved to Mumbai when he was 20 to attend the J.J School of Arts. He earned money by doing various odd jobs such as painting cinema boards and working at a toy factory. In his own words: "We were paid barely four or six annas per square foot. That is, for a 6x10 feet canvas, we earned a few rupees. And apart from the New Theatre distributor, the others did not pay us at all. As soon as I earned a little bit I used to take off for Surat, Baroda and Ahmedabad to paint landscapes." 

Husain's first painting- "Sunhera Sansaar", was was shown at the 1947 annual exhibition of the Bombay Art Society. Soon the Progressive Artists Group was formed, and through this, Husain was greatly influenced by Emil Nolde and Oskar Kokoschka. From 1948 to 1950 a series of exhibitions all over India brought Husain's work to the public's attention. 

1950s-1970s: Husain started travelling to China, USA, and Europe for his art to be recognized on an international scaled. Also, in 1966 Husain was awarded the Padmashree by the Government of India. This is also when he made his first film- "Through the eyes of a Painter". He was also invited along with Pablo Picasso to the Sao Paulo Biennal. 

1980s: During this time, Husain slowly grew into a more public figure through his numerous controversies. One event that received alot of media attention was his Shwetambari exhibition at the Jehangir Art Gallery. The exhibition consisted of 2 halls shrouded in white cloth and torn newspaper. He also gave a public performance in the Tata Center in Calcutta where he painted a picture of 6 goddesses. On the last day he destroyed his paintings by painting over them in white. 

1990s: Husain's collections started becoming more accessible to the public. 

His Style: The medium of work of MF Husain's paintings differs from oil to watercolor as he loves experimenting. The subjects of Husain's paintings greatly differ, but he inspired by certain topics in particular. Greatly inspired by the Indian epic- The Mahabharata- Husain freqently returns to the drama of the conflicts and characters as inspiration for his paintings. He is also often drawn towards painting depictions of horses and Ganesh. He also turns towards paintings of mothers, and icons such as Mother Teresa. 

Husain's creativity, style, and innovation have made him one of the most celebrated Indian artists today. He was truly an entrepreneur in Contemporary Indian art by also bringing Indian art to an international level. MF Husain has also had his fair share of controversies such as being charged for painting nude portraits of Hindu gods and goddesses even though he is a Muslim. 




Title: Naad Swaram Ganeshayem

Title: Naples Stallion
Materials: Acrylic on Canvas
Size: 24x36

Title: Autobiography
Year: 1996
Materials: Oil on Canvas
Size: 42x72 inches

Source: Cyber Art Museum

Figure: Hanuman

Wednesday, May 6, 2009

Art needs a wider canvas


The Business Standard
6 May 2009
Kishore Singh

Six decades after independence and nearly two decades after economic liberation, India has little to show by way of art in the public domain. According to some estimates, the USA alone has over 600 trusts and foundations that display art, mount fund-raisers to acquire more works and encourage research, while Europe has traditionally enjoyed a great capacity to divert corporate spending in this direction. Even China has managed to create a vibrant art community with museums and galleries and state-sponsored foundations that have brought contemporary art into the mainstream of Chinese life.

India’s poor record on this score is only too evident. Other than the National Gallery of Modern Art in Delhi, Mumbai and now Bangalore, or Kala Bhavan in Bhopal, a country with a population of a billion-plus simply has no stake in contemporary art. Sure, there are galleries — but their main function is transacting sales, not providing a comprehensive or even a specialised or thematic overview of the art scene in the country.

And yet, it isn’t as though there is a shortage of art collectors — or sufficient funds —in the country. Collectors spend crores of rupees to build personal collections, but have not thought to institutionalise those collections. Any CSR activity has remained confined to those that traditionally held sway — of dedicating a temple, a school and a well (though this has increasingly lost its relevance) to various family elders or ancestors. While any support of education, or slum development, is welcome, the void when it comes to supporting art is a visible lacunae.

Whether it is old money or new wealth — the Tatas or ITC as much as the likes of Infosys or Wipro — no one has thought to generate a corpus fund to build and house an art collection, underlining the apathy towards art in the national consciousness. We have failed to produce the Rockefeller or Onassis model of art trusts, a need that is now being felt as significant works by modern and contemporary artists find international buyers, or private collectors, as a result of which they disappear forever from public view. A vibrant art culture can be created when such art is displayed, or talked about, in the mainstream rather than just among a peer cognoscenti. Several galleries, curators and other members of the art fraternity speak of the importance of such foundations, and say the current slowdown provides the right opportunity to build corpus corporate collections at the right price, while also re-invigorating the art environment.

As always, there are a few exceptions, though it must be noted that they do not come from India’s major corporate club. The Devi Art Foundation, housed in an office building in Gurgaon, is the most prominent for breaking the mould of collector indifference. Housing the collection of Anupam Poddar and his mother Lekha Poddar, the Devi Art Foundation is dedicated to showcasing contemporary art, facilitating viewership and encouraging subcontinental art practices. The 7,500 feet of space is offered to curators to innovate and experiment, developing thematic aspects from the extensive Poddar collection.

A larger experiment, this one in the public-private domain, is scheduled to come up in Kolkata with the launch, some time next year, of the Kolkata Museum of Modern Art. A Rs 550 crore venture of the West Bengal state government with the private sector represented by Rakhi Sarkar, its managing trustee, the museum’s corpus funding got off to a start last year with an auction of contemporary and modern art at Sotheby’s that raised $1.5 million for the venture. KMOMA is being designed by Switzerland-based Herzog & de Meuron (with the Tate Modern in London, and Beijing’s bird’s nest stadium to its credit) in the city’s Rajarhat, with Delhi-based architect S K Das as local partner. When complete, it will likely house India’s most ambitious art collection after the National Gallery of Modern Art, consisting of works from the 19th century on to the current crop of exciting, new media artists.

The only other public outing for the arts currently planned is Neville Tuli’s Osianama, an ambitious project that is under completion at Mumbai’s heritage Minerva cinema that is being restored to house an extensive museum of Indian art, cinematic memorabilia as well as international oddities and collectibles already in excess of 1,60,000 numbers. But if India is to be viewed seriously for its art, interest from the state as well as a thrust from large business houses is important: but who will first bell the cat?

Like Husband Like Wife: Jayasri Burman


Jayasri Burman is an extremely accomplished Indian artist today. Born and brought up in Kolkatta, Burman went and studied print making under Monsieur Ceizerzi in Paris. She was also exposed to art very early on in life through her uncle Shakti Burman. 

Burman's paintings are primarily watercolor based, focused on indian mystical contents. Her paintings have a dream-like and spiritual quality about them that evoke the imagination. She often uses the colors red, blue, and saffron, since many of her works are inspired by nature. She has won several awards for her art works including The Certificate of Merit in 1987 and the National Award in 1985. 


Title: Jeevan Dhara

Title: Shringer


Friday, May 1, 2009

In Focus: Paresh Maity


One of the most talked about Indian artists today is Paresh Maity. Born in Tamluk, West Bengal, Maity received a Bachelors Degree in Fine Arts from the Government College of Arts in Crafts in Kolkata, and a Masters Degree from the College of Art in New Delhi. In a short career span, Paresh has made a name for himself in the Indian and International Art world (his paintings seem to have become a staple in every upper-class expatriate Indian's living room). Paresh has many distinctive awards including awards from the Royal Watercolor Society of London and the Harmony Award of New Delhi.

Paresh has two distinctive types of art work 1) Watercolor on canvas-landscapes 2) Oil on canvas-shapes and figures. Over the years he has also tended to shift towards an abstract style on his canvases. Paresh's signature style seems to be images of faces with extremely striking features in vibrant and sometimes piercing colors. While Paresh's newer oil on canvases are extremely attractive and distinctive, personally, I prefer his older water colors because of his ability to mix transparent colors in an extremely clean, yet intricate and refreshing way. 

Title: Landscapes
Year: 1987
Materials: Water color on canvas
Size: 55x73 cm
Source: www.pareshmaity.com

Title: Landscapes
Year: 1987
Materials: Water color on canvas
Size: 55x73 cm
Source: www. pareshmaity.com

Title: Landscapes
Year: 2000
Materials: Water color on canvas
Size: 55x73 cm
Source: www. pareshmaity.com

Title: Shapes in Symphony
Year: 2003
Materials: Oil on canvas
Size: 120x120 cm
Source: www.pareshmaity.com


Title: Intimate Images
Year: 2003
Materials: Oil on canvas
Size: 58x58 cm
Source: www.pareshmaity.com


Growing Value: Indian Art


The Siliconeer
April 2009
Priyanka Bhardwaj

Amid all the bad news about the economy, one ray of optimism is the steady growth of the market for Indian Art. 

Title: Mahisasura
Artist: Tyeb Mehta

If there is a sector in India that has managed to beat the recession, credit crunch and economic downturn, it has been Indian art. 

The market for Indian art is turning more substantial and varied, with increased global interest from art collectors, investors and auction houses lining up to tap the estimated Rs. 50 billion Indian mart. 

A recent indication is the Sotheby’s auction of Asian art works, where a Bharti Kher painting, “Mimic” sold much above pre-sale estimates, while a stainless steel mirror sculpture by Anish Kapoor sold for a record $1.4 million. 

While the recession has dented spirits last autumn with many Indian pieces remaining unsold at the Sotheby’s and Christie’s auctions, recent brisk sales of six contemporary, impressionist and modern works have underlined the growing value of Indian art. 

“The results are remarkable. I think this goes to show that top-quality works, at the right value, have a very strong market,” according to Maithili Parekh, deputy director at Sotheby’s. 

Indeed, observers say that the India art market is growing at a good pace of over 40 percent presently, compared to less than 20 percent 7-8 years back. Apart from Indian patrons, interest from international buyers with non-India roots is also up. 

Title: Reflection
Artist: Anish Kapoor

Fund managers and gallery owners in Mumbai confirm that investors (perhaps hurt by the crash in the real estate and stock markets over the last year) have diverted their money into art. 

This has inflated values by 30-60 percent, giving rise to a new breed of art investors as compared to art connoisseurs, who identify art works as brands to trade. 

The attractiveness of the Indian works is enhanced by lower pre-sale estimates, shrinking of catalogue size and recalibration of prices of art pieces. 

Indeed, from modern artists such as M.F. Husain, Francis Newton Souza and S.H. Raza, to contemporary ones such as Subodh Gupta, and upcoming ones, such as Chitra Ganesh, Indian artists are making a global splash and making big money too. 

Saffronart.com, in its Autumn Online Auction in 2007, facilitated the $1.5 million sale of a painting by Francis Newton Souza. 

A New York based Indian hedge-fund manager paid $1.6 million for Tyeb Mehta’s paintings titled “Mahisasura,” a Hindu buffalo demon destroyed by Hindu Goddess Durga. 

Title: A Very Hungry God
Artist: Subodh Gupta

An upcoming contemporary artist, Isha Saraf, who spent 10 years in New York, said: “The new art galleries in New York like ‘Bodhi Art’ are providing an apt platform to Indian contemporary art, full of vibrant colors, mixed emotions, gods, flowers and landscapes as compared to the Western art that has a more emotive feel.” 

Elaborating on the interest in Indian art, she said, “Indian art is breaking boundaries in terms of imagination, horizons, depiction and also becoming commercial.” 

Shekhar, an art collector and owner of Creativity Art Gallery, New Delhi, says, “The global financial meltdown has impacted the pricing of art work already bracketed in the bigger league, but the mass body of art work (including India) is only gaining in awareness and thus witnessing an appreciation in prices.” 

Title: Nadaswaram
Artist: M.F. Hussain

Saffronart director Dinesh Vazirani says, “Since 2000, the foreign-interest has risen and buyers comprise NRIs (Non Resident Indians) and foreign individuals, auction houses, collectors and investors.” 

Private banks are helping patrons build portfolios of art works, gallery auctions and direct sales, in return for a fee. 

Indeed, organized forums are betting on Indian artists and their works lately. The international interest has spurred changes such as the Devi Art Foundation, India’s first contemporary art museum in early 2008. 

Major exhibitions have been planned this year at London’s Serpentine Gallery, Japan’s Mori Art Museum and the prestigious Arco Contemporary Art Fair in Madrid. 

The Arco Contemporary Art Fair in Spain will provide pointers to the benchmarking of Indian art collections vis a vis global works. 

On the cards is the release of a movie called “Rang Rasiya,” based on the life of Raja Ravi Verma, a 19th century visionary painter, who contributed to making Indian art part of popular culture. 

Art arbiter Charles Saatchi began collecting Indian art last summer and plans to put on an exhibition titled “The Empire Strikes Back: Indian Art Today,” this year. 

Neville Tuli, founder and CEO of Osian’s Connoisseurs of Art, a premier art gallery of India, stressed that international collectors and museums have a fairly developed interest in classical art and antiquities, but not in Indian modern and contemporary art, which is evoking fresh interest. 

Title: Spit
Artist: Bharti Kher

Peter Nagy, a New Yorker who arrived in India in 1992, and within five years set up Nature Morte, one of the best-known art galleries in New Delhi has been quoted to say: “In terms of the international scene the interest in India is still nascent, yet my gallery is swamped with inquiries from curators, private collectors, galleries and foreign journalists.” 

Nagy opened a gallery in Kolkata last year in association with New York’s Bose Pacia Gallery, and a branch is due to open in Berlin, to showcase both Indian and non-Indian contemporary art. 

“With the economy opening up in the Nineties, Indian culture has become more relevant to the rest of the world,’’ says Nagy. “It’s influencing music and fashion — Punjabi folk music is mixed with gangster rap and the hip restaurants in New York are Indian.” 

Yet, issues related to paucity of state funding and support for newer artists, absence of critical enquiry or appreciation of art, patronage, preservation efforts, scientific restoration of works, expert marketing strategies, qualified curators, support staff and informed docents, need to be addressed. 

Censorship and intolerance by right wing fanatics have been a discouraging trend. 

Title: The Red Road
Artist: Francis Newton Souza

The nonagenarian M.F. Husain, in his 90s, stays in self imposed exile in Dubai due to threats from Hindu groups enraged by his paintings of nude gods and goddesses. 

In the past decade of relative non-recognition, though, there have been positive developments in Indian art: experimentation, newer issues, original thinking, international idioms espousing Indian ethos, expressive styles, modalities and infusion — all have brought a unique global interest to the Indian body of art. 

Yet an important question remains: How much of this is froth, and how much real? Is the increased interest and consequent skyrocketing price of Indian art reflective merely of nationalistic pride for the Indian nouveaux riches, whether in India or abroad, and a passing fancy for non-Indian global clientele caught up in a transient fad where all things Indian are sexy? Or is there some genuine aesthetic interest developing on Indian art? The recent global economic downturn could not present a sterner test, and if Indian art has crossed the initial hurdle with flying colors, the jury is till out on its longer term prospects.