Nitin Bhayana: Will art prices rise this fall?

BUSINESS CLASS/ Most of the lots at Christie's and Sotheby's are actually quite average

Like the fashion world, the art market too has its fall and spring seasons. The spring sales are smaller and, perhaps, less important with a smaller number of lots.

These take place somewhere in the east like Singapore or mostly Hong Kong. The fall season is the big one. With both the Christie's and Sotheby's sales in New York being back-to-back on September 23 and 24 respectively, the Big Apple is sure to swell up again with Indian art collectors who converge once a year to catch up with the scene and, perhaps, raise the paddle if need be.

The fall season sales in New York have become to the art world what the annual finance budget is to the stock market. The art world patiently waits for the direction the thumping hammer will take.

Dealers withdraw pictures for sale similar to those at the auction in anticipation of higher prices. This year, the estimates of the sale lots are their highest ever. Will more records be shattered yet again?

A brief glance through the two auction catalogues shows that most of the lots, even though aggressively estimated in general, are actually quite average or have been doing the rounds. Sotheby's starts with Jamini Roys and offers non- mainstream early S H Razas, a Tyeb Mehta and a V S Gaitonde (lot 137) estimated between $50,000 and $70,000.

Apart from the odd interesting M F Husain (lot 138) and, perhaps, a charming Akbar Padamsee (140), most of the lots consist of highly average works by senior artists. Christie's is probably better in the quality of lots but many of the works on offer are not fresh to the market and thus sales might suffer on this count.

Two spectacular F N Souzas (lot 194 and lot 215) were available at dealers earlier and thus might not generate the interest these would have gotten had they surfaced in the auctions only.

Similarly, the Husains, the B Prabha and the Lakshma Gaud watercolours (lot 221) have previously either been traded or have come up at the auctions earlier.

However, the sales do have a few stunners. The gigantic Bhupen Khakher (lot 248), at Christie's, is one of a handful of such works the artist made.

With a stellar provenance, exposure at good shows, illustrations in books and artists' retrospectives, the work may just get bids within its range of estimated price. And will set a world record for the artist. J Swaminathan's bird and mountain work (lot 242) is one other such work which is sure to exceed its estimate.

The art market has been particularly buoyant since Tyeb Mehta's "Celebration" sold at these very sales in the fall some two years ago. Other high points have been the sale of "Mystic Repast" by Souza which sold earlier this year and lately Raza's "Bindu Bij Mantra" at Saffronart a bit later.

Each sale has broken world records for the individual artist and pushed the benchmark of Indian art prices higher. The prices for all the above mentioned artists have gone through the roof since then and work from the same have become virtually unavailable.

Now that several artists have broken the $100,000 price barrier, the $250,000 figure is being loudly whispered. But better quality work needs to come up for that to happen.

There is no doubt that art prices for select artists might still be going up but novice collectors buying poor quality or stale works at auction will certainly bear the brunt in the times to come.