Works by the modernists draw collectors at a recent auction

Annual Winter Online Art Auction courtesy Saffronart produced strong results, highlighting the continued demand for works with good provenance. The Winter Online Auction featured 100 works by 43 modern & contemporary artists that closed with an impressive total of $7.1 million, including the artists like Arpita Singh, SH Raza, FN Souza, NS Harsha, MF Husain, Subodh Gupta, Shibu Natesan, Akbar Padamsee Jehangir Sabavala, and Manjit Bawa.

Coinciding with Saffronart’s 10 year anniversary, the milestone auction received good response. Co-founder and CEO of Saffronart, Dinesh Vazirani, has been quoted as saying: “Winter Online Auction 2010 was a celebration of our 10th anniversary. An historic event for the online art auction market was Arpita Singh’s ‘Wish Dream’ selling for $2.24 million. We’ve seen a strong demand for art works of the highest quality throughout the year. A,new benchmark has been set in this category, following this sale.”

The following are the highlights of the sale:

1. A mural made up of sixteen canvas panels by Arpita Singh, entitled ‘Wish Dream’, got a record price of $2.24 million, also the highest ever for an Indian woman artist at any auction, and also a world record price for a work sold at any auction online.
2. The auction was marked by excellent prices for several modernists like artists SH Raza, Jehangir Sabavala, FN Souza, KG Subramanyan and Husain, indicating the fact that the modern masters still remain highly sought-after.
3. Works by Souza witnessed great interest, with four of the artist’s painted works making it to the top 10 lots in the auction. These comprised ‘Disintegrated Head’($333,500), ‘Emperor’ ($230,000) and two Untitled works ($218,500 and $201,250, respectively).
4. KG Subramanyan’s ‘Inayat Khan Looking at Oxford – 3’ (1987) was another landmark, fetching a remarkable $46,635 – almost four times higher than its upper estimate. Another work by him, ‘Inayat Khan Looking at Pastoral Landscape’ also crossed the upper estimate by a whopping 335% to fetch $50,547.
5. Many other lots also witnessed interest and bidding from buyers across the globe. A majority of them exceeded their high estimates.