Gaitonde among top-selling in India art sales of 2014

While Tyeb Mehta was top-selling artist this past year, his contemporary V S Gaitonde remained the all-time most expensive artist in auctions held in India.
The country's art market confidence ended 34 per cent higher than 12 months ago, according to art-market analysts ArtTactic, who said the confidence in the Indian market was highest since November 2007.
Mehta's image of a trussed bull grossed over Rs 17 crore at Christie's second India auction in December 2014 but did not surpass Gaitonde's abstract landscape, which fetched over Rs 23 crore at the international auction house's first sale inside the country.
Also Modernist painter Mehta's "Blue Painting" sold for over Rs 11 crore at Sotheby's London auction, which grossed Rs 46.4 crore.

The 1982 painting, by Mehta was bought by an anonymous bidder for nearly double its low estimate at the Modern and Contemporary South Asian Art sale, which realised a "superlative" total of USD 844,915.
At the same auction an important work by Akbar Padamsee also smashed its pre-sale estimate. Padamsee's iconic 1952 painting "Prophet I" fetched more than three-times the low estimate when it sold for Rs 5.2 crore.

Raza's "Church At Meulan" went for approx Rs 2.03 crore much more than its pre-auction estimate while a new world record was set for Delhi-based artist Mrinalini Mukherjee whose hemp work titled "Sri" (Deity) fetched Rs 9,726,120.

"Painting No 3" by Gaitonde sold for USD 2,517,000 at Sotheby's New York sale in March. Bhupen Khakhar's "Buffalo among Flower Bed" sold for USD 293,000 in the same auction.
Christie's South Asian modern and contemporary art sale in New York realised USD 2,708,000 in sales with works from the collection of Shumita and Arani Bose selling to major collectors and institutions. Francis Newton Souza's monumental masterpiece "The Butcher" achieved USD 1,685,000, the second highest price for the artist.
India had a share of 0.12 per cent of the global public auction sales in 2014, while in 2013 the sales in India accounted for 0.14 per cent of the global turnover, according to information by Art Stage Singapore, a premier flagship art fair of Southeast Asia.

The Asia Week sales in New York in March 2014 featured special exhibitions by 47 galleries as well as 19 sales at four auction houses, with works on show ranging from archaic Chinese bronzes to contemporary Indian painting.
Christie's made USD 72 million in its eight public sales, while Sotheby's totaled USD 56.1 million across its five auctions.