Middle market surge in art

Saffronart auction shows new opportunity is in sub-crore market.

The punters have been having a field day, the collectors are checking out their mid-range artists, and Saffronart is laughing its way to the next auction with a Rs 57-crore sale that closed last night with 12 artists having sold works well over the Rs 1-crore benchmark on its online auction of masters.

And if you include MF Husain's Rs 99-lakh untitled work (short by a niggardly Rs 1 lakh), it could take the number of crore-sales to 13 and Husain's own crore-repertoire at the auction to a resounding four works.

The highest bid at the auction was fetched by FN Souza (Rs 2.9 crore), and the usual suspects who made the list also included SH Raza, Tyeb Mehta, Ram Kumar and, for the first time, Jogen Chowdhury (Rs 1.45 crore).

But, say gallerists in Delhi, it is now "catch up" time for many of India's artists languishing in the shadows far from the bright lights of Indian art.

Among the gainers (though this may also be on account of his being in coma for several months) is Manjit Bawa, whose oil commanded a humungous Rs 39 lakh, and a graphite drawing went for Rs 18.4 lakh, both exceeding, in fact trebling, their estimates.

Anjolie Ela Menon had two works in the sale, both of which almost doubled their estimates and sold at Rs 30 lakh and Rs 43.6 lakh, respectively.

But the two-day online auction, in fact, managed to double, treble and quadruple a good deal of the estimates (high by many standards) in any case.

An FN Souza drawing estimated at Rs 12-15 lakh sold for Rs 50 lakh, a J Swaminathan, estimated at Rs 2.15-2.58 lakh, sold for Rs 16 lakh, Paritosh Sen's work was bitterly fought over, far exceeding its estimate "" Rs 5-6 lakh "" to settle at Rs 26 lakh.

While the sale grossed the highest number of "crore" works at a single auction, it was the coming of age of the mid-range artists that has been its most significant trend.

Among the big gainers on its roster have been Jehangir Sabavala, KG Subramanyam, KM Adimoolam, Manu Parekh, Krishen Khanna, NS Bendre, A Ramachandran, Paramjit Singh, Ganesh Pyne and Laxma Goud.

"It was a remarkable sale," said a Delhi-based gallerist and collector, hinting at a slowing down in the prices of the blue chip masters. While Souza and Husain retained their popularity, it is clear the art market is maturing and collectors are looking at other artists to add to their collection. Amen.