Carpenters Workshop Gallery, an international gallery with outposts in Paris, New York, Los Angeles and London, which made its debut at the Art Fair last year, made sales worth $600,000 (nearly ₹5.3 crore), a fair representative said. The gallery showed 12 artists including the late German fashion icon Karl Lagerfeld— whose monochromatic functional sculptures made in marble were first exhibited a year before he died— as well as pieces by Sebastian Brajkovic and French textile artist Simone Prouve. David Zwirner, another international gallery with outposts in London, Hong Kong, New York, Los Angeles, sold works by Kerala-based painter Sosa Joseph and Zimbabwean painter Portia Zvavahera as well as Pakistani-American sculptor Huma Bhabha and Colombian artist Oscar Murillo, the latter two of whom made their debut at the fair. Senior Director of the London gallery James Green said the sales ranged from $12,000 ( ₹10.5 lakh) to $450,000 (nearly ₹4 crore).
Among the Indian galleries, Delhi-based Vadehra Gallery sold 90% of their booth on the first day, with prices ranging from $3000 ( ₹2.6 lakh) to $300,000 ( ₹2.6 crore), gallery director Roshini Vadehra said. The gallery showed works of major contemporary Indian artists including Sudhir Patwardhan, Atul Dodiya, Shilpa Gupta, and Vivan Sundaram. Another Delhi-based gallery Nature Morte sold 70% of their booth by the second day, including a work by Indian contemporary artist Jitish Kallat for around $100,000 (nearly ₹87.8 lakh), a representative of the fair said.
“We’ve concluded healthy sales of several works with individual prices ranging between ₹40 lakh to ₹1.5 crore each, and there is interest in other works that we hope to seal by the end of the fair, while sales at the uppermost levels are likely to be finalised in the coming weeks — which is typical of how art sales occur,” Ashish Anand, CEO and MD, DAG (formerly Delhi Art Gallery) said. Among the works sold are Laxman Pai’s canvas of spring painted in Paris, and Madhvi Parekh’s 1975 work, an oil on canvas board composition, while the gallery expected to close sales on works by 18th century Company painter Thomas Daniell, as well as modernists M. F. Husain and F. N. Souza.
Sales were also strong for mid-level Indian galleries. Delhi-based Art Exposure sold six works by Buddhadev Mukherjee for $44,000 ( ₹38.6 lakh) in total. Three of these were acquired by collector Kiran Nadar (founder of the Kiran Nadar Museum of Art). Ashvita’s, a Chennai gallery, sold five works by the late Devi Prasad Roychowdhury — whose Gyarah Murti sculpture is central to the Capital city’s landscape — to a Mumbai-based collector for $69,000 ( ₹60.57 lakh).
Shrine Empire, another Delhi gallery, sold two works by Nandita Kumar for over $30,000 ( ₹26.3 lakh) each — both sound-based installations featuring copper etchings on plexiglass — as well as multiple smaller works at the $10,000 ( ₹8.8 lakh) price point, a fair representative said. “All the 13 artists we showcased at our booth sold works in the Art Fair,” gallery director Anahita Taneja said. Bengaluru-based Gallery Ske, which has an outpost in New Delhi and represents artists like Sudarshan Shetty and Avinash Veeraraghavan, among others, made sales in the range of ₹1.2 lakh to over ₹3.5 crore, said founder Sunitha Kumar Emmart. The gallery showed the work of the late Iranian artist Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian for the first time at the fair. One of Shetty’s first works shown at his first exhibition, Paper Moon, in Mumbai’s Framji Cowasji Hall, and in New Delhi’s Ravindra Bhavan in 1995, was sold at the fair marking an emotional milestone for the artist.
While the Art Fair does not release total sales figures, there were several works of steeper costs for sale. For instance, some of Chinese dissident artist Ai Weiwei’s works displayed at Galleria Continua, as well as Argentinian artist Julio Le Parc’s Sphère Orange, were selling at 300,000 euros ( ₹2.7 crore) and above.
“The fair has been particularly vibrant this year with ambitious presentations and rare offerings by our galleries, design studios and institutions. Especially this year, the fair has marked a real coming together of the international world in Delhi with major institutional heads, curators and artists visiting the fair and forging connections with their colleagues in India,” Fair director Jaya Asokan, said.
