Even in a galaxy of extremely high-profile art works by some of India’s best known artists, one could be forgiven for reserving their first and most wondrous gaze for Subodh Gupta’s truly renowned work, “This Side is the Other Side,” (2002-2005). That’s a rather cryptic title for one of the most famous images of Contemporary art work from India — a cast bronze Bajaj Priya scooter shining golden, with stainless steel and chrome-plated milk cans hanging off both the sides.The scooter, a common middle class Indian’s all-purpose vehicle, is on the cover of the catalogue of the Saffronart Sale, “Contemporary Indian Art: A Selection from the Amaya Collection,” to be held December 4 - 5 online at www.saffronart.com. At the New Delhi preview of the auction a few days ago, it was the welcome piece at the Saffronart gallery that one feasted on before taking a look at other masters’ works hanging on the wall behind.It was inevitable to ask Amrita Jhaveri, the collector behind the Amaya Collection, who was present at the New Delhi preview, about selling the scooter. “I know people are going to wonder if I’m selling this work because of the price it may achieve. But no, it is more about practicality. I want to make my collection more manageable in the space that I have. It’s such a pity to have this work and not be able to display it properly,” she says pointing to the shiny scooter placed in the center of the Saffronart gallery for the preview. It is estimated at Rs 1 crore – Rs 1.5 crore ($138,890 – $208,335).Jhaveri — who was the first Indian employee with Christie’s in India in 1993, runs Jhaveri Contemporary with sister Priya in Mumbai. The gallery promotes Contemporary Indian art and won the New York Frieze Stand Prize in May this year. Most importantly, she is the daughter of parents who collected Modern art, antiquities, jewelry, textiles, and many other beautiful things, and took their children to galleries and museums. “I learnt to collect from my parents. A collector is like a gardener — one has to trim to be able to grow.” Jhaveri had trimmed her collection five years ago as well — as part Sotheby’s evening sale of Indian art in 2013 in New York, she had auctioned approximately 43 paintings including top names of the Indian art pantheon such as Maqbool Fida Husain, Sayed Haider Raza, Tyeb Mehta and Francis Newton Souza, to name a few.“I come from a family that loves to shop; at the end of day, I can’t stop shopping,” quips Jhaveri. But she is not just a shopper. She is a discerning shopper of good art, which is why it is not a surprise that the Contemporary Indian artists whose works she bought when they were not yet stars eventually went on to become some of the most important signatures in this part of the world and beyond.The Amaya Collection sale at Saffronart looks like a veritable who’s who of Contemporary Indian art — besides Gupta, there are works by Jitish Kallat, Bharti Kher, Shilpa Gupta, Dayanita Singh, Atul Dodiya, G. Ravinder Reddy, Raqs Media Collective, Anju Dodiya, Mithu Sen, Thukral and Tagra, and Jagannath Panda, to name a few. The auction comprises 47 lots.“Most of these artists have become big names since the time I bought their works. I bought these works because these appealed to me,” says Jhaveri. Like all good collectors — whose collecting habits help the market rather than ruining it — Jhaveri buys works on instinct and on an evolved understanding of how that artist’s work is likely to shape in future. “I don’t want to collect retrospectively,” she adds, which implies that she doesn’t run after signatures once they have become big and then amassing whatever may come from that artist’s earlier period. She says that she never set out with a plan to collect. “I taught myself, learnt what market perspective is and then followed up with what compelled me the most about an art work. I bought from gallery shows and not on resale.”An interesting example is the Bharti Kher work, “The Walls Have Years,” 1999, estimated at Rs 50 lakh – Rs 70 lakh ($69,445 – $97,225). Jhaveri points out to the work and says, “It’s the beginning of Bharti’s engagement with bindis later on that she is perhaps most well-known for. On hindsight, I bought it because it appealed to me, and now we know where Bharti’s art has progressed since then.” She is quick to underline the caveat, though. “This also involves the courage one must have to put down money on something about which you have no idea where it will go. It may go nowhere.”The collector calls herself a disciplined buyer and says that there is no particular reason on the timing of the upcoming sale. “I thought about it very carefully and I was just ready to do it now. I believe that if what you are offering to the market is good, it will find its level. I never came into this for investment and I’m glad that I’m not dictated by those compulsions.”A sale such as this is only a part of the work in art that Jhaveri does. It’s her gallery, which she runs with her sister Priya, that is helping in nurturing Contemporary art in India where there are only a handful few galleries dedicated to the genre. That’s not a surprise because a big chunk of Indian collectors continues to follow and aspire for Modern works of art. “We have developed a mixed model where alongside young/ Contemporary artists we also present older artists not in the mainstream but whose art is very distinctive and historically important despite not being so well-known.” For instance, Jhaveri Contemporary recently showcased the work of Mohan Samant (1924-2004), who is considered the ‘missing link’ in the narrative of Modern Indian art.And since the running of a gallery is a totally different field than building up a collection, Jhaveri says that she steers clear of buying all the art that is showcased in her gallery. Perhaps, in a few years, when Jhaveri is ready to sell some more from her collection, there would be names that she would have secured recognition for through her gallery.Her advice to young collectors? “Buy the art work, not the artist.”— The Amaya Collection will be auctioned on December 4-5. For details, visit www.saffronart.comClick on the slideshow for a look at the top works on offer at the auction.
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