Mumbai : Call them vintage, veteran, classic, Edwardian, oldtimer or klassik, but the fact remains that the historic vintage vehicle has become a crossroad for culture, human heritage, sports and pleasure.
The Historic Vehicle Movement and Market in the US and Europe has in fact developed into a several billion dollar business. A Ferrari 250 CTO from 1962 went under the hammer for a whopping $ 48405000, a tad over Rs 340 crore!
Needless to say, the Osian’s Art of the Historical Vehicle Auction is a welcome move. Lovers of Fine Art, vintage automobiles and its associated memorabilia gathered at the newly refurbished Osian Headquarters in Nariman Point, Mumbai, for the Opening Preview of two auctions of the highest quality – The Indian Modern & Contemporary Fine Arts Auction and Automobilia: the Art of the Historical Vehicle Auction.
Founder-Chairman Neville Tuli invited actor Kunal Kapoor to grace the Opening Preview and to preside over a conversation on ‘Traditions & Future of Racing & Rallying in India’ with Gautam Sen, an internationally acknowledged automotive expert and Head of the recently established Osian’s Historical Vehicles Division.
The conversation was followed by a display of the exhibits that showcased the owners and their cars like & 1967 Alfa Romeo GT 1300 Junior (Behram Ardesir); & 1988 Mercedes-Benz 560 SL (Huzaifah Bagasrawalla); & 1960 Chevrolet Impala (Sharoukh Engineer); & 1948 Singer (Kooverji Gamadia); & 1965 Triumph Spitfire MK 2 (Ishtiyaq Nagree); & 1928 Ford Model A (Harit Trivedi). “This is the first preview in India for Automobilia – the art and culture surrounding automobiles. Without that you cannot build an automotive culture. After the house, the automobile is the most important object and India is about to become the second largest producer for motorcars in the world, yet She doesn’t understand the history of this object because She has not been a part of its manufacturing history. She has only been a great collector once upon a time because of the Rajas and the Maharajas. Like our monuments and our art, this is a great piece of engineering and design. It has an important journey that we need to understand and be a part of. As a result, cinema has obviously understood that, Western cinema more than Indian cinema. But, if you see most of these stills Dev Anand in ‘Funtoosh’, Ashok Kumar, Kishore Kumar, Dilip Kumar, all next to cars. See those stills. We have ‘Chalti Ka Naam Gaadi’ but every movie has used them. So, you hold that together, you make it a piece of history; you try to share it with the world. Sometimes a bit of value is created. Create that excitement; otherwise people don’t respect the object. Today, you’re taking photographs, ten photographs a minute by every human being in the world. The photograph has lost its historical value. We need to keep that alive. And that is what we strive to do at Osian’s,” imparted the Osian Founder-Chairman Neville Tuli.
Gautam Sen, while talking about the Auction House, said, “Automobiles have been a part of our history and civilization for the last 200 years. It has transformed the cities, landscape, the way we live, the way we move and all sorts of liberties etc. If it is a part of the cultural scene, it has to be recognized as such.”
Acclaimed Actor, Automobile Enthusiast and Rallyist Kunal Kapoor averred, “the earliest memories of being obsessed with cars is similar to that of what a child has, which is those little matchbox cars. I remember being incredibly possessive about them. I was the child who would share everything except those cars. We have a long history of motorsport in this country and very few people know about it. I think it’s a great platform and hats-off to Osian’s for bringing so many people together. And also, as Gautam Sen added, introducing it in the format of Art, which is very important to get it to reach out to people again.” On being asked on how to make automobile history popular, Kunal Kapoor added “Introducing it at a grass root level in schools and colleges. The more we do that, the better we will be able to reach out to people and garner interests. As an actor, I can speak on platforms like this on how I feel and how passionate I am about this sport. I don’t know if that is enough, that’s just one part of it.”
“We are the great triggers. We create that inspiration. We energize people. We open things up. We make them respect it, fall in love. Try to go deeper, take it forward. Put the pieces of the jigsaw together and suddenly you have an infrastructure. You have an institution and maybe after that things start changing. It is a long journey. Everything takes a minimum of 30 years,” concluded Neville Tuli.
Also on display were magnificent artworks, many seen in public for the first time, such as Ganesh Pyne’s ‘The Night Watch’ (Tempera on canvas, 1962), representing probably his first major tempera painting, along with significant paintings such as Nicholas Roerich’s ‘Maitreya Series’ (Tempera on jute canvas, c.1926), M.F. Husain’s ‘Kashmir’ (Oil on canvas, n.d.), S.H. Raza’s ‘Paysage Corse Series’ (Oil on canvas, 1958), V.S. Gaitonde’s ‘Untitled’ (Oil on canvas, 1962), Jehangir Sabavala’s ‘Still Life with Fruit’ (Oil on canvas, 1949-50), F.N. Souza’s ‘Townscape’ (Oil on board, 1959), Akbar Padamsee’s ‘Untitled’ (Oil on canvas, 1963), among many more.
Spotted fancying the beasts were Gautam Sen, Harit Trivedi, Behramji Gamadia, Nirmal Bhogilal, Behram Ardeshir and Ajoy Kant Ruia, to name a few. The auction takes place on October 26 at the Osian’s HQ, G-2B Nariman Bhavan, Nariman Point, Mumbai.
