Gaitonde's'Untitled' work sold for over Rs 5 crore at osians Auction

New Delhi, July 29 (UNI) An art work by V S Gaitonde was sold for a record Rs 5.1 crore at the Osian's 'Masterpieces and Art, Book and Cinema series auction held in the Capital this weekend.

Total sales of Rs 16.5 crores were registered at the auction, held on Friday evening, with works by artists V S Gaitonde, Kshitindranath Mazumdar, Gulam M Sheikh, K S Kulkarni, Sanat K Chatterjee, Sailoz Mukherjee, A A Raiba, Serbjeet Singh, Vasudevan Akkitham, M R Achrekar, Sunil Madhav Sen and others setting new records.

While a work by V S Gaitonde was sold for Rs 5.1 crore One by artist S H Raza from Rajasthan fetched Rs 1.3 crore a work by Gulam M Sheikh titled 'Speechless city' fetched Rs 9.6 lakh and 'Ceremony' by Bikash Bhattacharjee Rs 60 lakh.

Among other arts works sold at the auction, one by Kshitindranath Mazumdar was sold for Rs 2.16 lakh, K S Kulkarni for Rs 30 lakh, Serbjeet Singh Rs 5.76 lakh, Vasudevan Akkitam Rs 10.2 lakh, M R Achrekar Rs 7.8 lakh and Sunil Madhav Sen Rs nine lakh.

The auction presented a comprehensive collection of Indian modern and contemporary art, books, popular culture and film memorabilia.

The books, popular culture and film memorabilia sections observed a discernable response registering a sale of 80 per cent, 94 per cent and 75 per cent respectively.

In the books section, a set of 10 comprising books on Husain, Amrita Sher-Gil, George Keyt reached a high of Rs 2.64 lakh, a set of 12 books including exhibition catalogues fetched a price of Rs 1.2 lakh and a set of 4 books about India touched a price of Rs 1.14 lakh.

The average lot price for the books section was Rs 61,369, for the popular culture section was Rs 64,518 and for the Cinema section was Rs 35,050 thus representing a significant increase in the average lot price.

Talking to reporters, founder chairman of Osian's Neville Tuli said,''this auction clearly indicates that the art market is strong and that the correction has given rise to a new confidence which respects high quality work with a discerning maturity of an international market." He said that The emerging markets for rare books, photographs, popular culture and film memorabilia is growing rapidly,and within the coming two years will show a very significant growth and increase in prices.

Tulli also added that for the first time Indian corporate houses are buying art as part of their corporate policy in a significant and systematic manner. The international museums and collectors are now respecting Indian modern and contemporary Art and it is just a matter of time before the next financial benchmarks are broken and a much deeper boom is put in to place.

UNI