Indian art auction market clocked turnover of over Rs 880 crore in 2020-21

New Delhi [India], August 13 : The collective turnover of Indian art sales within the public domain recorded a rise from Rs 13 crore in 2000 to Rs 880.9 crores in 2020 and 2020-2021 is distinguished as the best year for the Indian art auction market, says State of Art Market Report 2021.
The report by Artery India, which has analysed market activity from April 2020 to March 2021, says that substantial increase in turnover of Indian art sales over the last two decades has resulted in a surge of interest within the domain from the community, though being able to navigate the market has proven challenging for most new potential collectors and investors.
"Between April 2020 to March 2021, the Indian art auction market clocked a turnover of Rs 880.9 crore. As compared to financial year 2019-2020, wherein the Indian art auction market recorded Rs 559.7 crore, there was a jump of 57.3 per cent in the turnover in 2020-2021. The financial year 2020-2021 is distinguished as the best year for the Indian art auction market," says the report.
Artery India is an art intelligence and advisory firm that aims to make Indian art more accessible to the community.
The report says the turnover generated at online auctions contributed 99.2 per cent to the total turnover of Rs 880.9 crore in 2020-21.
"Online auctions increased from 49 in 2019-2020 to 105 in 2020-2021. Physical auctions increased from 15 in 2019-2020 to 53 in 2020-2021, despite the pandemic. The number of auction houses increased from 31 in 2019-2020 to 48 in 2020-2021," it says.
As compared to the previous financial year, the turnover of works on canvas recorded a growth of 65.8 per cent in 2020-21 and that of works on paper recorded a growth of 18 per cent. Also, the turnover of other materials recorded a growth of 136.2 per cent.
The report says that 2020-21 is the best year for works on canvas, recording the highest turnover of Rs 664.8 crore.
The turnover of the top 100 artworks increased from Rs 390.9 crore in 2019-2020 to Rs 504 crore in 2020-21.
The 'Modern' category accounts for 96 per cent of the turnover of the top 100 artworks in the previous financial year.
The number of record breaks dropped from 133 in 2019-20 to 75 in 2020-21. Despite the drop in the number of record breaks, the turnover of record breaks increased from Rs 52.5 crore in 2019-20 to Rs 98.2 crore in 2020-21.
The 'Modern' category accounts for 94 per cent of the total turnover of record breaks in 2020-21.
Referring to the performance of the Indian Art Market in the year of the COVID-19 pandemic, the report says that coronavirus affected the entirety of global financial markets in an unprecedented way, most markets, Indian and those abroad reacted to the pandemic with sharp volatility.
Arvind Vijaymohan, Founder and Chief Executive, Artery India, says, "Artery India's research and data has revealed that the strongest opportunities appear in the aftermath of a financial crisis, typically between 3 to 18 months following the first impact."
"Art, as we believe at Artery India, is a significant investment class, for chiefly one reason which is its lack of correlation with other asset classes. In an investment portfolio, art works well to safeguard wealth from other investments which often tank together as we have seen the last financial crisis in 2018. Having said that, from an economic lens, it remains difficult to adjudicate the merits of art as an investment because an annualized rate of return is not readily visible," the report says.
The number of works offered increased from 2,594 in 2019-20 to 3,463 in the next fiscal. The number of work sold increased from 2,374 to 3,061.
Although the number of works offered and sold increased, the sell-through rate dropped from 91.5 per cent in 2019-2020 to 88.3 per cent in the next fiscal.
The report does not include data pertaining to ancient and medieval antiquities, collectibles, miniatures and works by non-Indian artists.
Amongst the three categories of Pre-Modern, Modern, and Contemporary, the
Contemporary category had the highest sell-through rate of 96 per cent.
The cumulative lower estimate recorded a jump of 45.3 per cent in 2020-21, as compared to the previous financial year.
The cumulative upper estimate recorded a jump of 43.7 per cent in 2020-21 as compared to the previous financial year. The price realised of Rs 880.9 crores is 93.8 per cent of the cumulative upper estimate of Rs 938.9 crores in 2020-21.
The price realised of Rs 880.9 crores beat the cumulative lower estimate of 674.5 crores by 30.6 per cent in 2020-21.
The number of artists decreased from 539 in 2019-2020 to 358 in the next fiscal.
Giving an insight, the report says investing in a broad portfolio of paintings is not attractive but targeting specific styles or top-selling artists may add value.
Ten new Pre-Modern artists appeared at auction in 2020-21. The number of Contemporary artists drastically decreased from 334 in 2019-20 to 171 in 2020-21.
"Despite the decrease in the number of artists, 58 new Indian artists appeared at auction for the first time in 2020-2021."
The Modern category accounts for 91.5 per cent of the total turnover in 2020-21. Of the 3,061 works sold in 2020-21, 73.6 per cent were by Modern artists.
The Modern category recorded a jump of 66.4 per cent in turnover in 2020-21, as compared to the previous financial year.
The category with the highest growth over the last five financial years is Modern.
The quarter with the highest turnover in 2020-21 was quarter 2 (July, August, September 2020). The quarter with the highest lots sold in the fiscal was also quarter 2. The quarter with the highest sell-through rate was quarter 3 (October, November, December 2020).
The quarter with the strongest performance in 2020-2021 was quarter 2. The month with the highest turnover in 2020-21 was September 2020. It was also the month with the highest lots sold in the fiscal.
While the month with the highest sell-through rate in 2020-21 was February this year, the month with the strongest performance was March this year.
Male artists account for 84.6 per cent of the total number of artists in the Indian art auction market in 2020-2021. The only two Pre-Modern female artists who appeared at auction in 2020-21 are Amrita Sher-Gil and Sunayani Devi.
The category with the highest number of female artists in 2020-21 is Contemporary. The category with the least difference between the number of male and female artists in 2020-21 is Contemporary. The category with the strongest performance by female artists in 2020-21 is Pre Modern.
Amrita Sher-Gil accounts for 26.6 per cent of the total turnover of
female artists in 2020-21.
The modern female artists contribute 66 per cent to the total turnover of female artists in 2020-2021 and 63.8 per cent of the works by female artists belong to the Modern category in the fiscal.
The turnover of female artists in the Modern category recorded a
jump of 123.3 per cent in 2020-2021.
The number of female artists in the Contemporary category declined from 75 in FY 2019-20 to 34 in 2020-2021.
In FY 2019-2020, Amrita Sher-Gil alone recorded a turnover of Rs 16.6 crore with the sale of five works.
In 2020-21, Amrita Sher-Gil and Sunayani Devi together recorded a turnover of Rs 15.5 crore. The third among the top three is Zarina Hashmi.
The top three male artists of FY 2020-21 are VS Gaitonde, MF Husain and Syed Haider Raza.