‘Focused on introducing newer artists in Indian art collection market’
NEW DELHI : New Delhi: British art auction house Sotheby's is attempting to cater to young Indian art collectors, who are now more comfortable about art and about spending on them, through different initiatives. The auction house is also proactively introducing new artists to its platform to provide more choices to the young collector, a senior official of the company said in an interview.
For instance, Sotheby's has included a curated sculpture section in its auctions over the past few years, where sculptures are available for bidding at a variety of price points. "In September 2020, we selected a sculpture as our London catalogue cover lot —a work by Pilloo Pochkhanawala.
This work sold for just over $100,000, which was at the time the world auction record for the artist. The following year, our London office sold Atomic Couple (circa 1974), for $381,660 and since then we have seen very strong results for the sculptor at Indian auction houses, too," said Manjari Sihare-Sutin, the company's vice president and head of sale of modern and contemporary South Asian art.
She also said that during the pandemic, the company saw a steady shift to online sales and realised the strength of digital, interactive auction catalogues. However, while the engagement with its digital catalogues has continued, the tangible aspect of sales through exhibitions and live auction formats remains important still.
Currently, while the auction house continues to focus on its bi-annual auctions in New York and London, it does bring its travelling exhibitions to Mumbai and Delhi to incentivize Indian buyers to participate in the bids. In its upcoming auction in March, it has up for sale four sculpture lots, with prices starting at $3,000 (low
. Read more on livemint.com
