The Road Ahead

But another shocking revelation: Pablo Picasso at the same auction did not sell either,though much was riding on Picasso’s portrait of his wartime lover Dora Maar,titled Tête de femme. However,the work priced at $7 million didn’t move beyond $6.4 million in the bidding. When the stars of art do not sell at a prominent auction,it’s time to stop and think.

Was the pricing not in keeping with the recovering art market? Or as Yamini Mehta,head of Modern and Contemporary Indian Art,Christie’s London,puts it,was the chemistry all wrong? “I think that Indian art in general is doing well and is on an upward trajectory. The fact that some of these works may not have found buyers are not due to their intrinsic qualities but getting the right alchemy of strong quality works at the right pricing levels,” says Mehta,doing some quick damage repair. “Three of the works on auction were sold and all of these to new international buyers. Hence,there is a growing interest for Indian art in the region,” she adds.

Interestingly,Christie’s had a new entry in their post-war sale with a Chinese abstractionist Peter Doig’s painting going for USD10.1 million—more than the Picasso. At the same auction,traditional landscapist,Fu Baoshi’s Landscape Inspired by Dufu Poetic Sentiment sold for HK$ 60,020,000. This clearly indicates that for this auction,the taste of collectors was bent more towards Chinese art.

“Objectively speaking,the issue with the Christie’s sale was that the estimates were way too high and did not garner support from bidders. This auction does not indicate the general state of the Indian market since the art works weren’t the best quality-wise,” says Dinesh Vazirani of SaffronArt,which also has an auction coming up this month.