20th Nov. 2002

Bidding Boom Amba Batra New Delhi, November 19: You no longer have to get as far as Christie's Auction House in New York to bid for Indian paintings. You can now call out your price for a prized Hussain or a more contemporary Jitish Kallat on a site called saffronart.com. The three-year old Mumbai based online gallery holds two auctions a year and is the first in the country to do so successfully (the rest sell, not auction, that's what we mean).

With a handful of Indian art sites already in full swing, the aim they say is to bring fame to Indian artists away from home. saffronart.com takes it a step further with auctioning the works of famous Indian artists.

Why auction art? "It is just another mechanism for sales really," says Minal Vazirani, collector and owner of Saffron Art. Saffron however, does it a bit differently with a preview in select locations across the country before the bidding starts and then a four day span over which the event takes place online. The bid closes if another does not surface for a span of three minutes after the last bid and is extended for the same time period if a bid comes in.

Saffron art will be presenting its annual online winter auction to be held from Dec. 1-4, where 190 paintings dating from the pre-modern period to present contemporary artists will be up for bids. The collection includes leading modernists F.N. Souza, S.H. Raza, M.F. Husain, Tyeb Mehta and Ram Kumar and contemporary artists like Atul Dodiya, Jitish Kallat and Baiju Parthan. A water colour on paper by Husain has a starting price of 1.75 lakh and a more traditional oil on canvas by him starts as high as 7.5 lakh- 10 lakh.

Also, taking the opportunity to educate and guide people through the art selection and purchasing ordeal, are online galleries like India Art Mart. But don't get too carried away with art becoming virtual. A large number of artists may be willing to exhibit their work on a computer screen but renowned artists like Arpita Singh voice their disapproval with such sale styles. She says: "There has to be a physical interaction between a painting and the buyer before they purchase it and that does not take place online." Incidentally, one of her works was also spotted at the auction.

However, artist Sanjay Bhattacharya who sells his works through the Net claimed that the concept was new to Indians but abroad no one had trouble buying a painting once seen on the net. " In the next ten years the concept will pick up here also," said a confident Bhattacharya.

So forget the feel factor, cause if you want a painting and are willing to pay for it: log on and bid away. Saffron Arts auction starts from December 1 to December 4. For details log on to : www.saffronart.com.   

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