A decade-long commitment to art

On the occasion of completing ten years of Saffronart, the art auction house in India, DNA walked into their spacious house in Napean Sea Road. And quite expectedly, every corner of the house is adorned with the best of art works and choicest of furniture pieces.

A few in the art world allege that the Vaziranis upped prices artificially during their auctions. What does the couple have to say about the same? Dinesh replies, “Such things are said about any business. But, you know you have to know that you must be true and honest to yourself. Novelty, trust and transparency are the pillars of every successful, global auction house. And if one deviates from the same then we are thinking very narrowly. We would have never been able to reach where we are right now.” Minal adds, “When we first started out, it was mostly the NRI clients that were buying from us as they appreciate transparency. We are the only website that has the prices of the Indian artworks on it and no other gallery has it. Probably our transparency is not letting someone out there be ambiguous about their prices to make it work to their advantage.”

Dressed in black and white, Dinesh and Minal come across as very compatible co-workers. “While we are in a meeting taking important decisions and Dinesh looks at me, I know exactly what is he thinking,” says Minal. Dinesh smiles and adds, “If you keep me and Minal in the same room, we both will land up liking the same art work.” And it is this synergy that has perhaps worked the best for the couple. But Dinesh does think that he likes works of moderns more and because Minal is slightly younger than he is, she prefers contemporary art. Minal interferes, “It has nothing to do with age. I am more adventurous. It’s about the innovations and the new challenges that I like more.”

In 2003, the couple was about to shut Saffronart due to heavy losses. Both accept they learned their lesson. “We sat and decided that it’s a down market so we better think out of the box. And in fact we began to auction jewellery and also opened our new office space in London.” Minal takes over, “We did tighten our belts and cut our costs but at the same time thought of doing something new. We stayed committed and decided to stand by our passion.”

And lastly, the action plan of the next ten-year phase is to broaden the product category. The focus is on the grass root level art of the country and most importantly, to build a private museum in Mumbai. “It will be a long process. But we do need to preserve art. We just have two museums in Mumbai and it’s time we have a few more,” ends Dinesh.