September's malady: Auctionitis

After the hors d'oeuvres, the main course "" the big auctions are all happening this month.

Art auctions in a fully loaded September got off to a cautious start with Apparao Galleries' second experiment with its online and physical auction format of the early and current Bengal school. Prices, which have shown early signs of beginning to plateau in the frenzied market for Indian art, definitely indicated a tapering off"" communicating a sense of relief to collectors, and a breath of sanity in an overheated market.

Gallerists and auctioneers have tended to pussyfoot around the Bengal school because of documentary evidence of fakes (and fake-makers). Sharan Apparao's auction on Sunday, which delivered Rs 4.5 crore on the gavel, was bold in combining the difficulties of an online/off-line auction with a school known for its escapist content (abhorred by "serious" collectors). There were some glitches, but overall Apparao is emboldened enough to suggest she schedule her next auction (of artists from the southern states) some time in December.

A peculiar phenomenon was that of the 84 lots, of which 22 remained unsold, the majority were traded well within the bandwidth of the reserve price. Only two works broke the mould and went on to command the highest prices at the auction "" both K G Subramanyam (Rs 65 lakh) and Sakti Burman (Rs 63 lakh) doubled their reserve valuations.

"The market is getting discerning and people will not pay for overpriced art any more," said Apparao in Chennai, on the conclusion of the auction. "Even though Lalu Prasad Shaw and Ganesh Haloi are doing well, people will not pay a premium for them," she explained. Both artists sold poorly at the auction, and the bulk of their works were consigned back to the auction house. "The market, "concedes Apparao, "is levelling out, and works that are not an artist's best will not do well."