Saffronart's Minal Vazirani: The art of auction

Minal was very clear that she wanted to start an online auction house and not a gallery. In fact, when she was a student at INSEAD, she had etched out a business plan in her entrepreneurial ventures course, which eventually became the basis for Saffronart. “Writing this business plan was an amazing way to figure out what I wanted to spend my time on professionally within the safety of the academic environment. What I eventually built with Saffronart was a little different from what I started out writing but that was the origin of the company and of a serious commitment to art," she says.

Saffronart started life in April 2000 with a catalogue of over 2,500 works available at fixed prices for sale online, followed by a five-day-long online auction in December 2000, when the Vaziranis sold art worth $126,000. The sales were backed by research and a detailed catalogue. Two of the earliest investors in the company were Minal’s classmates, and one of them continues to be a part of it.

Saffronart became the only art company to publicly post prices online consistently, and that brought a significant level of transparency to the auctions space, the website and the art market overall. In 2000, it was not so simple to ship works of art from India to buyers across the globe. “We had to work with FedEx to rewire their logistics process out of India in order for us to do this," recalls Minal.

The journey of Saffronart, in a way, mirrors the evolution of the Indian art ecosystem. Most market analysts define the period from the early to the late 2000s as the ‘Indian Art Boom’. Based on these reports, most of which are available in the public domain, Minal shares that the global Indian art auction market was valued at $1.9 million in 2000, growing to $5 million in 2003, and getting a big boost to be priced at $15 million in 2005. Some key events contributed to this boom.

Also read: Gaurav Gandhi of Amazon Prime: On the watchlist

In the 1990s, Sotheby’s and Christie’s held their first sales of modern Indian art in New York. That was significant because Indian art had received little or no attention internationally before economic liberalisation in 1991. “Following this event, foreign investors were able and willing to speculate on the newly opened Indian market," states an article on the Indian art boom published earlier this year by MAP Academy, a resource on the history of art in South Asia. Works by Indian modernists found a huge international market, with massive records being set for the artists. For instance, Tyeb Mehta’s Mahishasura sold for over a million at Christie’s, New York, in 2005.

The reasons for this sudden growth spurt might lie closer home. As the article on MAP Academy states, [many] “analysts believe that this boom started in 2000, the year India’s two major auction houses, Saffronart and Osian’s Connoisseurs, were founded."

After getting initial funding from friends and family, the Vaziranis got their first institutional investment from Chrysalis Capital, and set about building a market for Indian art. They would travel across the world and build relationships, but most importantly, they put up curated exhibitions, supported by publications, to allow people to meet Indian artists.

Non-resident Indians from London, New York and Hong Kong, in a bid to connect with their heritage, started to buy art from the subcontinent. Slowly, there was a greater level of trust in Saffronart and in the quality of art coming from India. As the auction house expanded the market, there was a shift among collectors within the country as well, and “over the last few years about 60 to 65 per cent revenue started coming in from India," elaborates Minal.

However, 2003 was a tough year when the next round of funding didn’t come through. The Vaziranis sold a bit of their personal art collection and put the proceeds into Saffronart to keep the company going. “I am so glad that we did. In the years that followed, we saw the Indian market grow significantly," says Minal.

In 2005, she was approached by two professors, Dan Wadhwani and Mukti Khaire, from Harvard Business School (HBS), who had been following their journey and wanted to do a case study on how a small Mumbai-based company was able to contribute to the growth of the Indian art market—that too in the online space. Minal remembers going to HBS the first time the case study was taught.

Also read: Pavan Guntupalli: On a Rapido ride

“We sat at the back and listened to a group of students discuss our company. The professor asked, ‘what was it that Saffronart did right?’ And the takeaway was that we built a market through a medium that had not existed before," she reminisces.

Around the time the market for Indian art was booming, the Vaziranis decided to develop another service—to provide first-time buyers an entry point into what was otherwise an intimidating space. They started StoryLTD as a website in 2008 to offer collectibles and limited edition works to young and aspiring buyers. “It is lucky we did that. The financial crisis happened in September 2008 and the market crashed to less than half of its value from the year before. A work by an important contemporary artist had sold for $ 1.5 million in June 2008, and in February 2009, another work from the same series by the same artist sold for $250,000. So, you can imagine the significant crash of prices," says Minal.

StoryLTD was also born out of necessity. Galleries that had not sold much art and were struggling to pay their expenses requested Saffronart to put up their works on the website. “We held no-reserve auctions to help the galleries, opened up the market by giving access to new buyers, and allowed the market to reset prices in a very difficult economic environment," says Minal.

There is now growing confidence in the online medium for auction. Over time, Saffronart sales have seen records for several artists broken. Tyeb Mehta’s work continued to sell on a high note, with Untitled (Bull on Rickshaw) fetching ₹41.97 crore in 2022; The Story Teller by Amrita Sher-Gil sold for ₹61.80 crore in 2023—setting a new record as the highest-ever price for an Indian artwork.

“The art buyer became more sophisticated and informed. People would say, I have this work by a particular artist from the 1960s and 70s, but am looking for works from the 1980s. So, in the last few years, we have been seeing focused buying, price levels have moved up. Now, the top-end works sell for anything between 2 to 5 million dollars. Many more young collectors are now in the fray," says Minal.

Also read: Saahil Goel of Shiprocket: The delivery guy

Just like the market crash of 2008, the covid-19 pandemic, starting in 2020, had an impact on the art market. This difference was that people had a lot more time at hand and were focusing on their homes diligently.

“In the first year of the pandemic, we sold four times as much art as the year before. There was a wider group of buyers. The seasoned collectors were looking at building a legacy, and the younger ones were looking at strengthening their collection," elaborates Minal.

What has helped is that some rare and high quality works have been coming into the market in the past few years. This can be attributed to several factors. First, it reflects the decision of consignors—sellers, who feel it is the right time to offer their pieces. The steady increase in prices for top-quality works of art has played a crucial role in this growth, prompting collectors, who own such pieces, to consider selling. “Additionally, I believe there has also been quite a strong level of trust with Saffronart in terms of our track record and ability to do well with sales of these works," she says.

Today, the international perspective of Indian art has further evolved and expanded, with greater opportunities for South Asian art to be showcased to a much wider collector base. Many museums and institutions are adding works from the region to their collection, making them accessible to non-Indian visitors and collectors. For instance, the Tate Modern in the UK boasts of a strong collection of South Asian art and has regular programming dedicated to it. The Venice Biennale, this year, had an increased representation from India.

An ever-expanding interest among international collectors in South Asian art prompted the Vaziranis to think of starting an art fair in Mumbai—the city that has been home to them for so many years. Together with Conor Macklin and Nakul Dev Chawla, they started Art Mumbai last year, with its second edition to take place from 14-17 November.

This year, the programme has expanded to include 71 galleries from India and abroad, three foundations and more. “I really have to credit Dinesh with this. He said the time is now, and in a short span of time, we all managed to put the fair together," she says.

The Vaziranis attribute their successful partnership to a mutual sense of trust—it has been key to both their personal and professional lives. “Today, if you put us in a room separately with 10 works, we will end up choosing the same. We have been so in sync about what we like, enjoy and what to commit to," says Minal. “While we both go about things logically, the study of art brings the ability to dream and create. We tend to bring both the right brain and left brain combination to what we do."

QUICK 3

Must-read book: While it’s hard to pick just one, Italian author Umberto Eco’s ’The Name of the Rose’, is high up on the list. I was drawn to the visual imagery, intrigue and nuances in this historical murder mystery

Favourite genre of art: I tend to be drawn towards expressionist art, but it is hard to choose a favourite.

Hangout in Mumbai: Kala Ghoda area