Good art is hard to find. Authentic art works made by genuine artists and curated by professionals is even harder to get. If you are a connoisseur of high art, you need to be at the right places to explore and procure such art. So, here are some of the topmost auction houses in India that every serious art aficionado must know.
OSIAN’S
Location: Mumbai and New Delhi
SPECIALTIES: Antiquities, modern and contemporary art, books, Indian film memorabilia, sports memorabilia
An auction house set by an art aficionado Neville Tuli, OSIAN has been the driving force behind the India art market for a long time. They were instrumental in determining higher prices for the modern pieces of art. The auction house doesn’t exist in singularity but has many other initiatives like Osian’s archive and library collection, the Osian’s cinefan film festival and Osianama, a long term project for Tuli to build an online museum for art and cinema.
Saffron Art
Location: New Delhi, Mumbai and also London and New York
SPECIALTIES: Indian art, jewellery, and collectibles
Saffron art one of the first art auction houses in India and it runs successfully even today, presenting the best of contemporary and modern art to global audiences through tastefully designed exhibitions. It was initially just an web portal for purchasing art, started by the dynamic couple of Dinesh and Minal Vazirani but now it is much more than art portal for online auction. To encourage first time collectors they have also launched a new model wherein there are no prerequisite prices and the first time collectors get a say in determining the cost of a particular art piece for investment or for personal use/consumption.
Art Bull
Location: New Delhi
SPECIALTIES: Indian modern and contemporary art
Nakul Dev Chawla, founder of Global Art Hub and Kiran K. Mohan are the key people in the auction house. It is a relatively new player in the field but they have had a successful launch collaborating with Global Art Hub and carry a clear vision of connection the art galleries and the art buyers via a digital medium.
Bid and Hammer: Bid & Hammer
Location: Bangalore
Focus: Antiques, modern and contemporary Indian art
Maherid Dadha’sBid & Hammer has established itself as India’s pioneering multi-category auction house and is known to have a wide diversity of artists and the mediums to auction. The board of directors include the likes of Rukimini Varma, the great grand niece of Raja Ravi Varma, among others, who have helped them create of the most eclectic collections.
Pundole’s
Location: Mumbai
Focus: Modern Indian Art
It was one of India’s earliest art galleries and it established an auction house way back in the 1963. Founded by Kali Pundole in the vibrant post-independence era, the auction house is one of the most reputed and recognized in India today.
The auction house primarily deals with the artworks of the Progressive Artists Group and simultaneously works in close coordination with the Pundole Art Gallery that has been the instrumental to the careers of many modern Indian masters such as M.F. Husain, V.S Gaitonde, Ram Kumar, Akbar Padamsee and F.N. Souza etc.