The art collector Amrita Jhaveri. Courtesy Sotheby's
The art collector Amrita Jhaveri. Courtesy Sotheby's

An art collector's separation anxiety



"I'm hoping for one or two things that don't sell," says Amrita Jhaveri with a burst of laughter. "I'm thinking, 'Can I have them withdrawn?'" The influential art collector is sitting in the cafe in Sotheby's on Bond Street, steeling herself for the sale of a big chunk of her significant collection of post-Independence Indian art. The 43 works are expected to fetch between US$5million to $7m (Dh18.3m to Dh25.7m) among them at the auction in New York tomorrow. It will be an evening sale - a first for Indian art at Sotheby's - with a painting by the modernist master Tyeb Mehta estimated at $1.2m.

There are works by almost every important Indian artist of the past 60 years in the selection, from the titans of the Bombay Progressive Artists Group - MF Husain, FN Souza and SH Raza - to contemporary artists who explore consumerism and the feminine divine. Yamini Mehta, Sotheby's international head of South Asian art and a former colleague of Jhaveri's at Christie's, calls her a "standard bearer" in the field. "She is one of those collectors who, before everybody else has a work by a particular artist, would be the first one in there," says Mehta

The idea for the sale came about when Jhaveri, who was born in Mumbai and educated at Brown University in the United States, phoned Mehta to discuss her future as a collector, how much of her collection was in storage due to lack of space and how certain pieces could bring in funds to enable her to continue buying new art. They decided to organise a single-owner sale and began a series of heated negotiations on what to include.

"It was very, very, difficult," says Jhaveri. "For all these years these [works] were on my A-list; they were part of what I thought of as the core collection. But unless I offered the very best, or close to the very best, there wouldn't have been much point doing it."

If there is anything she could save now, she says, it would be a saffron- and cobalt-hued painting by Bhupen Khakhar, whose works are in the Tate, British Museum and Museum of Modern Art, depicting grieving Hindu men (estimated at $180,000 to $250,000). "His works are really hard to come by," says Jhaveri. "He's very much insider's artist and most of the people who collected his work were friends, so they held on to works and it doesn't come up [at auction] very often."

Another is a painting by Bikash Bhattacharjee of the goddess Durga riding a tiger with an unsettling smile and burning red eyes (estimated at $40,000 to $60,000). It's one of two works by Bhattacharjee that will be in the sale. Jhaveri says: "I was saying to Yamini: 'Can I just give you [the other] one?' but I'd pulled something else out of the sale. She was like, "No, we've got to keep the values. We've got to do it."

If the collection is any reflection of Jhaveri's personality, it's more like an old snapshot than a mirror of her current tastes, which is partly why she wants to "edit" it. When she began buying art, she was living in Mumbai and "looking at the world from an Indian perspective", so her collection "reflected the conversations that were happening in India at that time". Later, on moving to London and marrying Christopher Davidge, the former Christie's chief executive, she got interested in art that is "less rooted in one place only".

Which isn't to say that she doesn't still care about the country's home-grown art scene. As well as ploughing proceeds from the sale back into her collection and doing "more ambitious things" with her gallery programme in Mumbai, she'll be using the money to fund a project space at Khoj International Artists' Association in New Delhi, a grassroots organisation that supports artists from all over South Asia, and donating a work by the sculptor Mrinalini Mukherjee to the Tate.

Although the market for Indian art hasn't recovered from the dive it took in 2008, Jhaveri is confident that there will be a healthy amount of interest from both Indian collectors and international buyers. She just wants whoever acquires the artworks to be motivated by passion rather than investment strategy. "Art that sits in storage is an unloved thing," she says. "I hope that whoever owns them enjoys having them."

Ÿ The Amaya Collection Sale at Sotheby's New York is tomorrow. Visit www.sothebys.com

Key developments in maritime dispute

2000: Israel withdraws from Lebanon after nearly 30 years without an officially demarcated border. The UN establishes the Blue Line to act as the frontier. 

2007: Lebanon and Cyprus define their respective exclusive economic zones to facilitate oil and gas exploration. Israel uses this to define its EEZ with Cyprus

2011: Lebanon disputes Israeli-proposed line and submits documents to UN showing different EEZ. Cyprus offers to mediate without much progress.

2018: Lebanon signs first offshore oil and gas licencing deal with consortium of France’s Total, Italy’s Eni and Russia’s Novatek.

2018-2019: US seeks to mediate between Israel and Lebanon to prevent clashes over oil and gas resources.

CHINESE GRAND PRIX STARTING GRID

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Sebastian Vettel (Ferrari)
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arcus Ericsson (Sauber)

Manchester City 4
Otamendi (52) Sterling (59) Stones (67) Brahim Diaz (81)

Real Madrid 1
Oscar (90)

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Transmission: 9-speed automatic

Price: From Dh215,900

On sale: Now

When Umm Kulthum performed in Abu Dhabi

  

 

 

 

Known as The Lady of Arabic Song, Umm Kulthum performed in Abu Dhabi on November 28, 1971, as part of celebrations for the fifth anniversary of the accession of Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan as Ruler of Abu Dhabi. A concert hall was constructed for the event on land that is now Al Nahyan Stadium, behind Al Wahda Mall. The audience were treated to many of Kulthum's most well-known songs as part of the sold-out show, including Aghadan Alqak and Enta Omri.

 
COMPANY PROFILE
Name: HyperSpace
 
Started: 2020
 
Founders: Alexander Heller, Rama Allen and Desi Gonzalez
 
Based: Dubai, UAE
 
Sector: Entertainment 
 
Number of staff: 210 
 
Investment raised: $75 million from investors including Galaxy Interactive, Riyadh Season, Sega Ventures and Apis Venture Partners
The specs
Engine: 77.4kW all-wheel-drive dual motor
Power: 320bhp
Torque: 605Nm
Transmission: Single-speed automatic
Price: From Dh219,000
On sale: Now
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Cricket World Cup League 2

UAE squad

Rahul Chopra (captain), Aayan Afzal Khan, Ali Naseer, Aryansh Sharma, Basil Hameed, Dhruv Parashar, Junaid Siddique, Muhammad Farooq, Muhammad Jawadullah, Muhammad Waseem, Omid Rahman, Rahul Bhatia, Tanish Suri, Vishnu Sukumaran, Vriitya Aravind

Fixtures

Friday, November 1 – Oman v UAE
Sunday, November 3 – UAE v Netherlands
Thursday, November 7 – UAE v Oman
Saturday, November 9 – Netherlands v UAE

The specs: 2018 Maxus T60

Price, base / as tested: Dh48,000

Engine: 2.4-litre four-cylinder

Power: 136hp @ 1,600rpm

Torque: 360Nm @ 1,600 rpm

Transmission: Five-speed manual

Fuel consumption, combined: 9.1L / 100km

How it works

A $10 hand-powered LED light and battery bank

Device is operated by hand cranking it at any time during the day or night 

The charge is stored inside a battery

The ratio is that for every minute you crank, it provides 10 minutes light on the brightest mode

A full hand wound charge is of 16.5minutes 

This gives 1.1 hours of light on high mode or 2.5 hours of light on low mode

When more light is needed, it can be recharged by winding again

The larger version costs between $18-20 and generates more than 15 hours of light with a 45-minute charge

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Singham Again

Director: Rohit Shetty

Stars: Ajay Devgn, Kareena Kapoor Khan, Ranveer Singh, Akshay Kumar, Tiger Shroff, Deepika Padukone

Rating: 3/5

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Name: Almnssa
Started: August 2020
Founder: Areej Selmi
Based: Gaza
Sectors: Internet, e-commerce
Investments: Grants/private funding
Zidane's managerial achievements

La Liga: 2016/17
Spanish Super Cup: 2017
Uefa Champions League: 2015/16, 2016/17, 2017/18
Uefa Super Cup: 2016, 2017
Fifa Club World Cup: 2016, 2017

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UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
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Engine: 1.5-litre, 4-cylinder turbo

Transmission: CVT

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