souza-sale Indian Artist Souza's Heirs, Collectors Sell as Prices Rise
c.2006 Bloomberg News By Linda Sandler May 4 (Bloomberg) -- Francis Newton Souza's heirs and collectors capitalized on the Indian-born artist's popularity at a Bonhams sale in London, selling drawings and watercolors that have surged in the past decade. Souza, who died in 2002 in Mumbai after living mostly in the U.K. and the U.S., was a leader of Indian modern art, according to Artnet AG, which tracks art trends and prices. Indian buyers, enriched by growing enterprises at home or success in the West, are pushing up prices, encouraging owners to sell. Bonhams's estimates at yesterday's sale were quite high, dealers said. Four of the 39 lots didn't sell, and many went within the range of their estimated value, or at the low end ascribed to them by the London-based auction house. Some telephone buyers paid large premiums. ''There is plenty of Souza on the market and there's no need to bid them up,'' said Peter Osborne of London's Berkeley Square Gallery, who bought several lots close to their low valuations, and had three other people buying for him in the room, he said. Bonhams's final total for the auction of Souza works on paper, which had a combined top value of 213,300 pounds ($391,544), isn't available yet. London-based art adviser Hammad Nasar bought two drawings for the offices of a financial firm, he said. They included a 1952 ink ''Portrait of a Woman With an Earring,'' which he got for a hammer price of 3,000 pounds, the low estimate. ''Ten years ago, I bought Souza drawings on the subcontinent for 40 pounds,'' said Nasar, whose company is Art South Asia. Selling Gifts Among the sellers: Souza's estate, an anonymous U.K. collector and friends of Souza selling gifts of his drawings. ''We wanted to support the auction,'' Francesca Souza, one of the artist's daughters, said when asked why the family was selling. ''We all have large collections and we don't often sell.'' Souza's ''Nude in a Landscape,'' a 1957 pen-and-pencil drawing with watercolors that shows a blunt-headed, seated woman towering above the pink buildings behind her, had a top estimate of 12,000 pounds. Osborne paid a hammer price of 8,500 pounds for it, closer to the low estimate of 8,000 pounds. He has a ''huge'' inventory of Indian art to meet clients' demand, the dealer said. The top lot was a 1962 collage on magazine paper, entitled ''Crowned Head,'' which may represent one of the kings present at Christ's birth, Bonhams said in its catalog. With a top estimate of 12,000 pounds, it took 17,000 pounds from a telephone buyer. Souza gained fame in the 1950s with a one-man show in London, and his work was later shown in U.S. museums including New York's Guggenheim and Washington, D.C.'s Hirshhorn. Champagne and Smoked Salmon His works on paper show the influence of Pablo Picasso's nudes and heads resembling African masks, with flashes of traditional Indian art. He was neglected in the last years of his life and now is being reassessed in the booming Indian art market, the jazz musician George Melly said in a speech at a champagne and smoked-salmon private viewing the night before the sale. Melly said afterward he's a longtime Souza fan, though not a collector. Paintings by Indian artists are getting as expensive as high-priced U.S. and U.K. contemporary art. Sotheby's Holdings Inc. auctioned a picture by Syed Haider Raza for $1.5 million in New York in March, and Christie's International sold an untitled 1962 Souza painting for $800,000. ''Prices have risen for some Indian artists 20-fold'' in the past two years, Anu Ghosh-Mazumdar, a Sotheby's specialist, said before the March sale, which listed an anonymous New York-based Indian hedge-fund manager among the buyers. Christie's sold $15.6 million of modern and contemporary Indian art in New York on March 30. Five years ago, its Indian painting sales totaled about $650,000. On top of the hammer prices, buyers at Bonhams pay a 20 percent commission on the first 70,000 pounds and 12 percent on the rest of the lot's value. --With reporting by Lindsay Pollock in New York. Editor: Vines (jbp/jmr) To contact the reporter on this story: Linda Sandler in London at (44) (20) 7673-2317 or [EMAIL PROTECTED] To contact the editor responsible for this story: Jim Ruane in Brussels at (32) (2) 285-4309 or [EMAIL PROTECTED] -0- May/04/2006 12:54 GMT _____________________________________________ Do not post admin requests to the list. Goanet mailing list (Goanet@goanet.org)
