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.

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.

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

"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

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