India Art Fair visitors have auction prices topmost on minds

The record price fetched by Christie's auction of a V S Gaitonde painting in December last year seemed to play on the minds of most visitors at the India Art Fair here.
The Fair, one of largest Art Fair in the country had in its sixth edition, which ended on February 2, showcased over 1000 artists from India and across the world displaying their painting, sculptures, digital art, photography installations and performance art.
"How much is this work? Do you think the price will go up if I buy this," one visitor was overheard inquiring about a very recent watercolour by artist Arpita Sinha displayed at the Vadehra Art Gallery at the Fair.

The visitor, a woman referred, to an auction some years ago where a mural by Arpita had fetched a whooping price making her the first woman artist of her generation to come up in the top auction bracket.
"Ma'm the prices in the auction market are very different from the ones that are sold by galleries," pointed out the bemused gallery owner.
Another visitor, a collector of modern Indian masters wanted to add to his collection and spent time peering over works by F N Souza at various Indian galleries.

"We find that there are many old buyers at this edition to the Art Fair. Most of the interest and buyers was for Souzas. There were works priced between Rs 3.5 lakhs to Rs 10 lakh. A surprise for us was K S Kulkarni's works for which we received a lot of interest," Uday Jain, Director, Dhoomimal Gallery said.

The gallery said they had made sales around Rs 40 to Rs 45 lakhs and were still receiving inquiries. Anjolie Ela Menon had curated a section by Krishen Khanna, Manjit Bawa, M F Husain, H A Gade and Rameshwar Broota among others.
Delhi based Crayon also reported sales of Souza. "Our Souzas sold the most. Thery were priced between Rs 7.5 lakhs to Rs 80 lakh. Till now we have sold a total of 8 pieces of artwork," said the gallery representative.
International galleries too reported sales.
"Carlos Gabrel Munes, of the Gallery said they "were getting buyers from UK, US and Belgium. People from Delhi and Bangalore are also interested in the artworks." NEw York and London based Aicon Gallery said they sold works by Husain and Souza, and G K Irani. The sales ranged from Rs 4 lakh t Rs 1.5 crore.

1X1 Art gallery from Dubai which showed works by Nemai Gosh, Satyajit Ray and Benod Behari Mukherjee said they had sold "six to seven works".
London-based gallery SCREAM which represents Pakpoom Silaphan displayed his mixed media works showcasing Dalai Lama, Mahatma Gandhi and Pabalo Picasso.