Ambani sells artworks to assist wife's charity

Indian billionaire Anil Ambani will sell 12 artworks to raise cash for a charity run by his wife Tina, a former Bollywood star, Christie's International said.

The paintings and sculptures may raise more than 100,000 pounds in a London sale on June 11, and are being offered by Harmony Art Foundation in association with Barclays Wealth, the auction house said in an e-mailed statement. Proceeds will go to Harmony, a nonprofit organization founded by Tina Ambani that supports the work of emerging artists.

Anil Ambani, ranked by Forbes as the sixth richest man in the world with an estimated wealth of $42 billion, is also putting 32 works from his private collection on display at Christie's in London on June 7-10, ahead of the sale of South Asian modern and contemporary art. Ambani's father founded the Reliance Group of companies.

Christie's said the exhibition will include modern paintings by members of the Bombay Progressive Group as well as works by contemporary Indian artists such as Atul Dodiya and T.V. Santhosh.

"This is an opportunity to showcase the work of two of the most formidable art collectors and philanthropists in India," Amin Jaffer, Christie's international director of Asian art, said in a telephone interview. "Demand for contemporary Indian art has become a global phenomenon. The rate of growth has been spectacular."

Price rises

Over the last 10 years, the Indian contemporary art price index has surged 830 percent, according to research by French-based art-market data provider Artprice.

Among the highlights at Christie's auction is Birth, a 1955 painting by the Bombay Progressive artist Francis Newton Souza, estimated at 600,000 pounds to 800,000 pounds.

Gupta's 2007 circular metal sculpture, Untitled, is expected to fetch as much as 500,000 pounds. The 112-lot sale may raise as much as 4.7 million pounds, said Christie's.

The market for Gupta works reached new heights when one of his metal sculptures fetched a record 502,330 euros, triple the presale estimate at an Artcurial sale, according to the Paris-based auction house.

India's Sensex-30 Index has dropped 14 percent this year. Still, Sotheby's May 2 auction of Indian modern and contemporary art in London took 4.3 million pounds, with 79 percent of the 123 lots sold, the auctioneer said.

The top price reached in the sale was the 580,500 pounds paid for Souza's 1962 painting Red Road. The most expensive contemporary work at Sotheby's was Gupta's 7 feet wide 2005 canvas Untitled, showing a luggage trolley being wheeled through a crowd; it sold for 264,500 pounds, more than double its high estimate. All prices include fees.

Agencies

(China Daily 05/08/2008 page16)