June 18th and 19th Saffronart features an online auction covering 140 works by 67 modern and contemporary Indian artists. These will be accompanied by preview events in New York and Mumbai. This is one of those rare occurrences in the Indian art world, when both modern and contemporary artists are being showcased in the same market to the world at large. ?Essentially both these styles of art have traditionally different buyers in the market. The European and non-Indian buyers seem to identify more with contemporary Indian artists, and hence their demand is currently more in the west. The Indian resident and non-residential buyers have a greater connect and nostalgic feeling toward Indian modernists. Thus the works of artists like Souza, Raza, and Hussain amongst others fetch such high values.
By putting contemporary and modern artists together for this auction, we are hoping to see some of the non-Indians take a keener interest in modern artists and visa-versa with the Indian buyers and contemporary artists,? explains Dinesh Vazirani, the founder of Saffronart.
What to essentially look out for in this auction are some of the rarer works put up. These include the 1992 Germination catalogue cover by SH Raza, Subodh Gupta?s shimmering utensils, one 1942 sketch by Souza as well as his 1995 St Sabastian, and one of the conceptual landscapes from Jagdish Swaminathan?s mountain, bird, and tree series.
This summer auction is the 21st in the series by Saffronart with a total lower estimate of approximately Rs 27 crore ($6.7 million). While Indian artists have in the recent years been creating a few records, in the next 12 to 18 months we might see a work by one of the top five modernists fetch up to $5 million feels Dinesh. The highest valued piece in the auction is by SH Raza, his 1992 Germination valued between Rs 2.75 to 3.75 crore being auctioned in lot 50. Subodh Gupta, Jagdish Swaminathan, Jagannath Panda, FN Souza, TV Santosh, Rashid Rana, Badri Narayan, Atul Dodiya, and of course MF Hussain form the unique line-up of this auction. Meena Mukherjee?s bronze sculptures cast from the ?lost wax method? and a velvet clad fibreglass sculpture of a cow inspired by the ?nandibull? are also being auctioned, and all in all this is like a mini-preview of the artistic Indian world.
To take part in this auction and view the pieces being sold, one should first go the Saffronart website, i.e. http://www.saffronart.com.
The structure of the auction and its time span allows serious collectors as well as first-time buyers, worldwide, to place their bids over a period of two days, as opposed to a period of a few hours in a live auction.