Still counting the zeros

At the Sotheby's and Christie's auctions in London and Dubai, India's contemporary artists continue to steal the limelight.

On Wednesday night, in Dubai, a Rameshwar Broota painting scored big time when it was auctioned for $912,000, but only a day earlier, in London, F N Souza had rocked with his second-highest-ever price of $1.175 million.

On both days, the party that is Indian modern and contemporary art continued with record sales and skyrocketing prices, though the artists' performance differed in the two regions.

In London, Souza "" who had been forced to flee the city in the sixties for his bohemian lifestyle "" was clearly the artist of the moment at Sotheby's Indian Sale with its 220 lots that included everything from swords and miniatures to works by its modern and contemporary artists. In all, the sale realised $7.96 million.

On the other hand, at Christie's first-ever International Modern & Contemporary Art auction in Dubai, where Egyptian, Lebanese, Iranian and Western artists rubbed shoulders with their Indian and Pakistani counterparts, the Indian gang stole the thunder and the prices well above the rest.

While the $8.5-million auction set 53 new records, most for artists from the Middle Eastern countries, it was the Indians who commanded the highest prices (even over Andy Warhol, so what if his Double Mona Lisa was a silkscreen ink on paper), bagging nine of the top 10 slots, with only Egyptian artist Ahmed Moustafa in the reckoning at fourth place.

The Christie's auction also proved a record maker for Indian artists Ganesh Pyne ($204,000), Paramjit Singh, Jogen Chowdhury and Gieve Patel, and for their Pakistani counterpart, Sadequain, who is enjoying considerable buoyancy in the international market for his works.

Tyeb Mehta, who has proved to be the highest grosser for modern art in India, failed to impress in London, and M F Husain performed poorly in comparison with his reputation and market benchmark.

Yet, a day later he was in fine fettle in Dubai where five of his works were among the list of top 10 grossers (though the prices in both auctions were similar to each other).

Likewise, while Souza ruled London, he lost out hopelessly to Raza in Dubai who, in turn, didn't do too well in London. But collectors who had bid at both auctions say this is not representative of any trend, pointing out that "prices are no longer chasing just artists but their better works".

Nor is the Indian summer over yet. On May 28, in Hong Kong, 13 contemporary Indian (and Pakistani) artists will be part of a Christie's auction. They include Atul Dodiya, riding high in the international firmament, as well as Subodh Gupta and Bharti Kher.

Expect some more records to be broken.