Saffronart’s Winter Auction last week, threw up records and insights and the reason for celebrating a 10-year haul in the service of online auctions worldwide. Saffronart’s Dinesh Vazirani is like a wide eyed epicurean who searches, networks, and plumbs the depths of hand picked Indian Modern Masters even as he gathers the art of pristine and impeccable provenance for his Online Auctions.
At Mumbai’s Tote on Turf last week, Saffronart’s invitation to collectors and bidders all around the world homed in a comely crowd of discerning art lovers. Looking around at the small but handpicked preview, there was Arpita Singh’s monumental mural Wish Dream, for which a wall had been created. The first feeling that came to one’s mind was the satisfaction of knowing that its impeccable provenance and its might on Indian shores gave so many art lovers a chance to look at it before it went into the hands of a private buyer. Wish Dream’s owner, Amit Judge has done yeoman’s service to the country by turning it into the hands of Dinesh Vazirani instead of Sotheby’s or Christie’s which would have promptly flown it across the seven seas. And in 10 years Saffronart have proved their very worth in the legends that have been born through their winning bids.
At Tote on Turf, the suite of Souzas was a sight to behold. Specifically because there is a brisk trade in terms of Souza fakes with galleries and dealers all thriving in the trade. In fact, one must look at some auction houses with suspicion because they are a veritable part of the fake trade. Legend has it that a dealer gets the Souza fakes created in one of Punjab’s cities, while the Raza fakes come out of Jaipur . Beware buyers, don’t be fooled by a catalogue or a newly found art fund or auction house. The very fact that this critic never chooses to write about them or mention them by name suffices. And in a newspaper if one writer chooses to write about the same auction house or dealer again and again, there has to be a vested interest. That itself is design for deceit.
Collectors of a certain age may have noticed that the 10th anniversary of the Saffronart is imminent in terms of the kind of work that goes into getting an auction on the boards. Within the art world, the Delhi Preview was a cause for much ballyhoo and dewy-eyed nostalgia, because Arpita Singh sat before her work, and a 300-strong art fraternity attended. But before getting caught up in all the hoopla, your critic — wisened enough to have been around when the auction house made its debut in 2000 —would like to contribute her two-pennyworth of personal experience on why this really is the most innovative auction house of its age.
The most extraordinary thing is its power to sustain, unlike the Osian’s and some new others who are part of the quagmire. Success, however, doesn’t quite have a recipe. And it’s not about its wind-words and setting a stage by paying a newspaper a hefty amount to garner a space. Nor was it simply the fact that the novel independent functioning, as well as the transparent front, allowed it to skate round recession corners, while momentum on all wheels could bring it so abruptly to a stop. Nor even was it the powerful twin- engine (husband and wife team), with a rare yet embracing heritage of intuitive business acumen that could propel the auction house to art and jewellery successes, in an age when the fastest most could manage was little more than half as much. It’s about endowing itself with one of the highest competitive coefficients for a series of auctions in search of blue chip names. Realistic pricing instead of ideated fantasy becomes the moot point in handling the works in the auctions.
All these features, and more, would have been enough to make this auction house an E Type classic. But what turns Saffronart into an icon of this millennium is that it has endured for 10 years, with simple, yet remarkable goals. In short, to put extraordinary works within the grasp of ordinary collectors and create legends in the spiraling world of auction highs is Saffronart’s greatest gain.
Prices for contemporary works increased seven-fold between 2000 and 2008, according to the French-based database Artprice. Values of modern and contemporary Indian works fell less than their counterparts in many other countries during the financial crisis.
In its August sale this year, Saffronart sold $6.7 million worth of paintings, with 81 per cent of the lot finding buyers. This time in the Winter Sale, it sold 80 per cent of the lot, with Arpita Singh’s Wish Dream setting a new record of $2.23 million. Wish Dream’s highest bidder was the billionaire collector Malvinder Singh, who has set new standards for art in the capital city’s avante garde circles of collectors. What will be interesting to watch is where Malvinder Singh will house the monumental Wish Dream. Or as artist Krishen Khanna said at the Delhi preview, “One can always buy a work of art and create a house for it later.”