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| Edited By: Gargi Gupta |Source: DNA webdesk |Updated: May 07, 2018, 06:06 PM IST
Sotheby’s, the oldest auction house in the world, and also the second biggest by size of revenue, is opening a sale room in Mumbai with an inaugural auction in December 2018. Gargi Gupta speaks to Gaurav Bhatia, Sotheby’s India managing director to understand what this means, what the auction called ‘Boundless: Mumbai’ will offer to collectors and Sotheby’s India strategy.
What led Sotheby’s to decide on opening a sale in Mumbai now?
It was about time. India has been on the map for Sotheby’s for a while now. Indian clients have been transacting with us for eons – we have record of the first transaction in the 1930s where a maharaja bought a diamond necklace from Marie Antoinette’s collection in Sotheby’s London. Since then, one has seen Indian collectors being very, very active. In the last five years, Indian clients have bid in excess of $250 million at Sotheby’s auctions. This includes Indians from all over, but the larger percentage comprises residents Indians. This is a sizeable number. Not only that, the volume of transactors at Sotheby’s from India has doubled in the last five years. This shows the huge amount of interest and passion. Jook looking at these two numbers, you can’t ignore India. It’s a growing economy.
We set up our office in 2016 in Mumbai. The team here comprises four people and a couple of consultants. So, in a way, while we’re the oldest auction house in the world, in India we’re like a start-up.
Across categories - a lot of it is south Asian modern and contemporary art, of course, at our two sales in New York and London, but also old master paintings, the Impressionists, continental furniture, and jewellery. Just recently, we had an iconic sale of Fred Leighton, the ‘jeweller to the stars’. Leighton had an affinity for India and Indian jewellery. Relatively speaking, it was a little unknown sale in India but we had three Indians bidding. While the number may sound small, these are high value items, and two of them won their lots. Technology has been the biggest equaliser in this – you could be in your bed in London, bidding for lots. Which is exactly what happened - the client was in bed, as it was 11 at night, bidding.
Sotheby’s had its first online sale last year exclusive to south Asian art. It was ‘A Lyrical Line’ – paintings and drawings by Souza on paper. The success rate was 83% lots sold. This shows that the participation was incredible. In the past five years, at Sotheby’s online, the number of Indian clients bidding online has gone up nine times and there’s been a 60% increase in value in what Indians have spent online.
The opportunity is far larger than the challenge, I would say, at this point. The opportunity presented by young clients in India with the propensity to spend, who are far more inclusive in their disposition to buy art.
It is challenging, too, and stems from the fact that while we are a culturally rich country, our orientation [to the arts] has been far weaker than the Western countries.
Then look at the taxation – in Bengal, under the VAT system, there was no tax on art. Now there is 12% GST. In developed countries, in the UK and US, it is 6%-8%. And when you import art, you pay GST and you pay IGST. This is a penalty on those who are buying art at auctions abroad and bringing it back home, when the government should be incentivising them – it’s our heritage, our history. Which is why Indian art treasures that lie abroad get transacted between the US, UK, France, Germany –it never comes back. Many of them are bought by Indians, but they keep it in their homes abroad because they know that once they bring it back to India, they cannot take it out again. It’s very restrictive, this policy.
Two, you can’t take anything over a hundred years old out of the country. It’s going to get quite scary because very soon, Husains and Razas will be hundred years old, and are you going to prevent people from taking these artists out of the country? What you’re doing by this is restricting global interest in Indian art. If a German buyer wants to buy and take it back with him to Berlin, he cannot.
A large part from within, yes, but we’re not being restrictive. It’s going to be a very young sale in spirit. We don’t have our antiquity licence as yet, so there’ll be no antiques.
The painting shows the moment when Durga is slaying mahisasura – it is very peaceful, though the context is not very. It is in the colours of the Indian flag - green, white and yellow-orange. Tyeb was one of the most important modernist painters, and his oeuvre was quite limited, but the painting is significant for more reasons.
Tyeb was a Muslim, born in Gujarat, and during Partition he did not move to Pakistan. When the 1992 riots happened, Bombay [now Mumbai] was on fire. Tyeb felt under attack and so escaped and went to Santiniketan. He was very disturbed, and in an interview he later said, ‘I saw Durga everywhere.’ Coincidentally, around the same time he got a call from a collector who said he wanted to commission a painting, any painting. Tyeb started this painting in 1993, six-seven months after the riots. From his perspective, it was the triumph of good over evil, but also of secularism, and signalled a return to peace. Despite its grim origins, it’s a positive painting, showing his belief that things will return to normal.
Very important, this became the starting of his much celebrated Mahishasura series; one can see the figure of the bull evolving from this point. And incredibly, the painting had been lying in a private collection and had never been seen before. A photograph of the painting was published in his book, but no one knew where it was. Which is why we feel that this is one of the most important paintings to come to auction and hope it will break all records of Tyeb, if not of south Asian art. It was part of a very sophisticated collection, and it’s serendipitous how I got it. It’s valued at upwards of Rs 20 crore.
The auction market is looking up – it was up 13-17% last year, despite GST, despite demonetisation.
We do not lack confidence in the Indian art market. We’re here to start business in a big way, I hope. It’s very important to study the demography of your client, to see the opportunity that lies with a lot of younger buyers. ‘Boundless’ really caters to that. Along with this seminal work of Tyeb Mehta, we will also have newer categories like photography, design, and furniture at really good prices. The sale will have a quirk factor. I want the 30 year old to look at these and bid online; I hope you’ll be able to get something for as little as a lakh. It’ll be a global sale.
