Fresh for the block

Are auction houses finding the going tough to source paintings by Indian masters? This month's Christie's New York auction will see 96 lots of Indian art go under the hammer.

But four of the total lots, which were seen at a Delhi-based gallery recently, have all been snapped up by the auction house and will now figure in its March 31 sale. They include works by A H Muller, Manchershaw Fakirjee Pithawalla, Asit Halder and A Ramachandran.

Of the total number of works that figure in the auction catalogue, seven paintings are as good as less than a year old. Seven works by artists such as S H Raza (Kundalini), A Padamsee (Head), Krishen Khanna (Ramlal With His Hound), K M Adimoolam (Terra Incognita), Anjoli Ela Menon (Journey), Ganesh Pyne (Mask) and Baiju Parthan (Cheat Code) were all completed last year.

At the Saffronart auction, earlier this month, a total of 44 works were for sale. Of these, works of Raza (1), Ram Kumar (1) and KG Subramanyan (1), Akbar Padamsee (2) and Krishen Khanna (3) were all completed last year.

Even in its December sale of 145 paintings, 15 per cent of the works were as fresh as a few months old. Artists whose recent works went up for auction include Ram Kumar, Krishen Khanna, Lalitha Lajmi and Sakti Burman. The list could go on to include K M Adimoolam, Prabhakar Kolte, Aparna Caur, Surendran Nair, Baiju Parthan and Rekha Rodwittiya.

Hugo K Weihe, senior vice-president, Indian & South-East Asian Art at Christie's, says that while the market is broadening, good works are getting scarce.

"Works of the Progressives are harder to come by and we are keeping a watchful eye on how to broaden the focus and add new names to the canon," said Weihe, who was in Delhi recently.

While the season's first sale at Christie's does not have any works by V S Gaitonde or Tyeb Mehta, four artists, Chittrovanu Mazumdar, Manu Parekh, Jayashree Chakravarty and Baiju Parthan have entered the auction market for the first time.

As the Indian art market grows, auctioneers such as Christie's and Sotheby's need to procure works to fill up three shows a year each. Osian's, too, roughly holds three auctions a year. The demand is clearly pushing Christie's to put out fresh works.

In fact, gallerist Sharan Apparao thinks that the entry of artists in the auction market is also raising the prices. "It starves the galleries of stock and takes the prices higher."

But Delhi-based gallerist Yogesh Jain says that auctions are good as collectors are no longer at the mercy of gallery owners and have greater liquidity. "This way you can actually unlock the actual value of a painting," he says.

On the other hand, Arun Vadehra, consultant to Christie's, says that auctions are simply fulfilling the function of demand and supply. "Today, it's difficult to meet a minimum target of making a show all-representative (artists)."

As demand for Indian art works grows, prices are touching an all-time high. This month, Christie's is expecting a new record of nearing a total sales figure of $ 3 million.

The March Saffronart auction saw a 50 per cent increase in average price per lot to $45,000. At its December sale, its average price per lot was $15,000.

While Saffronart saw a 100 per cent sale this month, works of five artists "" Husain (Rs 76 lakh, Untitled work), Jehangir Sabavala (Rs 32 lakh, Of Tree and Trees), KG Subramanyan (Rs 19 lakh, Old Encounters), Krishen Khanna (Rs 37 lakh, Last Supper) and Akbar Padamsee (Rs 43 lakh, Untitled) "" fetched record prices in a public auction.