Indian art prices soar in London

More private collectors of Indian origin are picking up art...

Within a week after Christie's exciting June art sale in London, auctioneer, Sotheby's followed up with their sale of Indian contemporary art that totaled 2.06 million GBP (3.38 million USD) on June 16 at Bond Street. Most of the top drawer items were sold at prices much higher than estimated - a positive indication that the art market is turning around slowly but surely.

Among the top ten were older artists such as enduring favourite, M.F. Husain (born 1915), Francis Newton Souza (1924-2002), Manjit Bawa (1941-2008), Krishen Khanna (b. 1925) and Bikash Bhattacharjee (1940-2006).

Day Dreaming - an ink-and-pastel (lacquered) composition created in 1979 by 70-year-old Jogen Chowdhury was the subject of a heated bidding battle between art collectors and eventually it was bought by an American collector for a record amount of 2.91 crores INR (3,73,250 GBP or 6,09,629 USD). This piece became more than a bone of contention since this rare art with exceptional provenance was being made available for sale for the first time ever. It was exhibited at the Sao Paulo Biennale in 1979.

Chowdhury's distinctive style of fluid lines and simple sensitive forms with awareness for pattern and texture (152 cms. x 182 cms.) perhaps helped it attain such a high price. With a weakness for obese figures in his drawings, Chowdhury tends to be traditional and on the money when his cross-hatching frames merge. Says Chowdhury, "I have always been fascinated by the conventional forms of a sari draping around a woman's body, and I have sought through that image, forms of my own making, in a new manner." A textile designer at the Weavers' Service Centre in Chennai during the late 1960s, Chowdhury moved to Delhi in 1972 as curator of paintings at the Rashtrapati Bhavan at the President's Estate.

Also scoring at three times the high estimate of 1,20,000 GBP was Orange Head, an oil-on-canvas by Souza (1963), that was bought for 403,250 GBP (658,628 USD). Just shows that in spite of a certain coolness in the art market over the past year deals continue to be made. Souza has not been without controversies but now that the artist has passed on, there is more value-added interest in his paintings.

Formerly an exclusive preserve of wealthy foreigners we now see more private collectors of Indian origin picking up contemporary art as witnessed by sale of artist Bawa's Untitled oil-on-canvas, for 85,250 GBP (139,239 USD) and Husain's oil-on-canvas - Woman in Red which sold at 82,850 GBP (135,319 (USD).

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(A New York based independent trend writer, Raj S. Rangarajan reports on the art market, reviews books and films for media based in New York, Toronto, Canada, Seoul and India.)