Spiralling prices at Christie's auction

The bull run on Indian art in New York continued yesterday with VS Gaitonde joining the millionaire's list, with an Untitled work from 1975 fetching $1.47 million at Christie's record $15.6 million auction of modern and contemporary art.

Just the previous day, Sotheby's had auctioned works valued at $13.6 million, with two artists "" SH Raza and Tyeb Mehta "" attracting prices well ahead of the $1 million benchmark.

The two back-to-back auctions saw dealers and collectors from India thronging to New York to make bids on behalf of their clients at the two events.

Those who were expecting the two auctions with their 316 lots to be priced "reasonably" on account of the surfeit of work being made available in such a short span of time, were reportedly surprised at the aggressiveness of the bids.

While the Sotheby's auction had hinted at a plateauing (especially for unexceptional works) of prices, the baton on Thursday pointed once again to the searing cost escalations that is driving the prices of Indian artists.

"The mood at the Christie's sale was opposite that of the Sotheby's sale," said a spokesperson for Bodhi Arts from New York. "It was very buoyant and the bidding was strong."

He pointed out that the only similarity at both auctions was that "the good lots sold very well indeed". The 168-lot Christie's auction had a large number of works of the Progressives, and considerably fewer (as compared to Sotheby's) dedicated to the contemporaries.

With few exceptions, the gavel fell far beyond the estimates, with the highest prices being commanded by FN Souza ($800,000 for an Untitled work), SH Raza ($744,000 for Tarangh), Tyeb Mehta ($632,000 for Blue Torso fetching within the estimate of $500,000-700,000), M F Husain ($576,000 for Sita Hanuman), Ram Kumar ($452,000), J Swaminathan ($284,800) and K h Ara ($240,000).

Among the next lot of artists, N S Bendre pulled in $108,000, Rameshwar Broota $216,000, Bhupen Khakhar $156,000, while sculptor Ravinder Reddy broke through the ceiling with $168,000 for a polyester resin fibreglass head.

Though it had few contemporaries, the prices there remained fairly buoyant, with international favourite Subodh Gupta spearing far ahead of his estimate prices for both his painting (sold for $84,000, almost three times over estimates) and his installation of milk cans ($144,000, some five to six times over the estimate value).