‘The art scene is very robust and exciting’

How do you view the current art market in India?

The art scene is very robust and exciting. We are at that cusp where every time we build up to our auctions, collectors and dealers expect to break another record. The auction prices we set have helped in achieving that extra oxygen needed to help the market to grow. Having our India sales has helped increase the collector base exponentially.

Your last two auctions helped set benchmarks for Gaitonde’s works. What are your expectations this time?

We don’t want to jinx it (laughs). Gaitonde’s works are so rare, his calibre and the kind of provenance they come with, reaching us from the most significant collections from Mumbai. The current work has been one of the centrepieces in Jamshed Jehangir Bhabha’s collection for over three decades and then stayed in the collection of National Centre for the Performing Arts (NCPA). It is one of the best Gaitonde works to come to an auction. It was also one of the paintings chosen for his retrospective at Guggenheim Museum in New York and the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice. In terms of what did he make, the market will decide. Sometimes to make a record, all it takes is for two collectors wanting a work badly. But I really hope it goes to an institution so that people from world over can see it.

At the auction held in December last year, SH Raza’s work didn’t fare well. His large work titled Bindu remained unsold. With the artist’s passing, do you see his works finding more takers?

Our attempt this time was to pay homage to Raza by bringing together some of his best works and to showcase him in the best light. His canvases have tremendous wall power and he was rightfully called the master of colours. There was just one work from the ’60s that we were surprised didn’t do well the last time. We couldn’t preview another canvas of his during the London sale, as it didn’t arrive on time so we had to withdraw.

Significant body of works by contemporary artists such as Bharti Kher, Subodh Gupta, Shilpa Gupta and Sheba Chhachhi are also part of Christie’s auction this time.

Our composition of the sale is different from the past. By bringing forward the best works of modernists, we are achieving the greatest prices. But we also realised that the contemporary works have taken a back seat. We want to bring back the balance by not just having great modernists but also those who will be the future modernists. So unless we bring contemporary works to the markets, the market won’t mature.

How are the works of modernists faring in the auctions?

Modernists will always do well. If you see results from 2008, their prices were not affected because collectors are very clear that there is only a finite body of work since most of the modernists are no more. The question is how long we can source them and convince the collectors. We hold the auction record for all modernists, including Husain’s sales of eight crore for the large diptych The Battle of Ganga and Jamuna that was sold in 2008 at our New York auction. But we are not able to bring major Husain works anymore. He had personal relationships with his collectors and many of them are not willing to part with his works.