‘Focused on introducing newer artists in Indian art collection market’

NEW DELHI :New Delhi: British art auction house Sotheby’s is attempting to cater to young Indian art collectors, who are now more comfortable about art and about spending on them, through different initiatives.

The auction house is also proactively introducing new artists to its platform to provide more choices to the young collector, a senior official of the company said in an interview.

For instance, Sotheby’s has included a curated sculpture section in its auctions over the past few years, where sculptures are available for bidding at a variety of price points.

“In September 2020, we selected a sculpture as our London catalogue cover lot —a work by Pilloo Pochkhanawala. This work sold for just over $100,000, which was at the time the world auction record for the artist. The following year, our London office sold Atomic Couple (circa 1974), for $381,660 and since then we have seen very strong results for the sculptor at Indian auction houses, too,” said Manjari Sihare-Sutin, the company’s vice president and head of sale of modern and contemporary South Asian art.

She also said that during the pandemic, the company saw a steady shift to online sales and realised the strength of digital, interactive auction catalogues. However, while the engagement with its digital catalogues has continued, the tangible aspect of sales through exhibitions and live auction formats remains important still.

Currently, while the auction house continues to focus on its bi-annual auctions in New York and London, it does bring its travelling exhibitions to Mumbai and Delhi to incentivize Indian buyers to participate in the bids.

In its upcoming auction in March, it has up for sale four sculpture lots, with prices starting at $3,000 (low estimate) to as high as $120,000-180,000 (pre-sale estimate) for ‘Shiva’s Dance’ by sculptor Dhanraj Bhagat. “We have witnessed some record-breaking results over the past few years, with our auctions going from strength to strength. Sculptures are now very much in vogue too,” she said.

In more recent years, the auction house has also pivoted to introducing newer artists to auctions, including artists that have not featured at any international auction before. Some of these include Bashir Ahmad, T.K. Padmini, Youngo Verma and K.V. Haridasan.

Last March, Sotheby’s sold a work by Bangladeshi artist Aminul Islam for $33,020, against a pre-sale estimate of $7,000-9,000. At the same auction, a painting by Antonio da Cruz, one of Bombay’s most coveted portraitists in the 1930s and 1940s, sold for $22,860 against a pre-sale estimate of $4,000-6,000.

“While it is difficult to predict how such artists’ markets will evolve in the coming years, we feel it is important to continue introducing new artists into our auctions. These works start at a lower price point and represent an opportunity for younger clients who are starting to collect,” she added.

This strategy comes in the backdrop of a new class of buyers that is now buying across various price points, and also because progressive artists aren’t achievable to every single or new collector because they can be very expensive.

Indians generally tend to shy away from art, but the pandemic has spurred a lot of purchasing. So much so that works at auction have recently fetched prices like never before. A recent report by Knight Frank said super rich Indians are prioritizing art as an asset class after they’ve made investments in real estate.

The report said nearly 17% of India’s super-rich (those with a net worth of $30 million and above) bought coveted collectibles using their investable wealth in 2023.

Sihare-Sutin concurs. She’s observed that Gen Z and millennial Indian collectors under 40, professionals and family business owners who have entered the art market in recent years have moved up swiftly from purchasing art worth thousands of dollars to lakhs in a shorter period than their predecessors did. India’s bustling art fair scene has also encouraged many to dabble in the art market as well.

This month, in New York, the auction house will put up a single owner sale of collector couple Virginia and Ravi Akhoury and others — which had already travelled to India and back — including a Francis Newton Souza work from 1958 as well as works from Kattingeri Krishna Hebbar and Jehangir Sabavala. The Souza work is estimated to be between $300,000 and $500,000. The collection also features a Mabool Fida Husain work Untiled (Laxmi), which has a pre-sale estimate of $100,000-150,000.

In October last year, an untitled Manjit Bawa artwork depicting the Hindu deity Shiva fetched $2.3 million (about ₹20 crore), a record for the artist, at its last Modern & Contemporary South Asian Art auction in London.

Bawa’s work joined a heady list of artworks sold recently. In September 2023, an Amrita Sher-Gil painting titled ‘The Story Teller’ from 1937, fetched an eye popping ₹61.8 crore at an auction by SaffronArt, a record for any Indian artwork at auction. The same month, Pundole’s auction house in Mumbai sold a Sayed Haider Raza painting titled Gestation for ₹51.75 crore, including the buyer’s fee.