Former L&T manager Gunnar Hansen’s Indian art collection up for grabs

NEW DELHI: When he was not spearheading the rollout of L&T’s diversification into switchgear manufacturing or interviewing young jaunty graduates like AM Naik for a job in the mid-1960s ‘Bombay’, Gunnar Hansen would be seen rummaging old antiquities in Chor Bazaar or befriending the young motley of Bombay Progressives at Jehangir Art Gallery, the rising and rebellious “upstarts” of the art fraternity.

And even if the hard-nosed Dane might not have been impressed with an “overconfident” Naik after the interview and hired him at a lower grade, a young Vasudeo S Gaitonde did.

It’s been about 60 years since the Indophile Gunnar and his wife Inger Hansen left India and 14 years since the former L&T executive passed away in native Denmark, but a treasure trove of their private art collection will soon be auctioned in London.


Penchant for Abstract Works
The collection was amassed over couple’s two-decade stint in India.

Many of those canvases like an Untitled Gaitonde that they would infamously take for a “test drive” before actually buying it, are now sought-after masterpieces with global buyers breaking the bank to get hold of even during the pandemic. Not surprising since just last week, another painting by the same abstract painter smashed all records for Indian art and went for 32 crore, excluding fees and taxes. The one, part of the Gunnar and Inger Hansen collection, is expected to be valued at least between 14.48 crore and 19.26 crore, say the auctioneers, Sotheby’s.

The Gaitonde aside, in all, there will be 18 of such artworks including the works of Ram Kumar, Krishen Khanna, Mohan Samant and Piraji Sagara valued anywhere between 17.48 crore and 23.34 crore (1,79,9000-2,401,000). Sixteen of which till now are unpublished and unseen.

“These are collectors who liked semi-abstract works and collected them in the early days of these artists,” says art critic Uma Nair. “For the masters of our country, it isn’t just their work but also the technique and its treatment that is important. Which is why the Gaitonde is special. It has an amorphous flavour...”

“The Hansens’ collection demonstrates the depth and quality of abstract and non-objective art which was being created in India,” adds Ishrat Kanga, head of Sotheby’s London Modern and Contemporary South Asia Art Sale.

Old-time L&T watchers say, like Hansen, fellow Dane and the conglomerate’s co-founder Henning Holck-Larsen and his successor NM Desai were also big on Indian art and collected on behalf of the company and themselves.

Focus on Collections of Expats
Of late, there has been a rising interest in the expansive private collections of Indian art of expats and foreign professionals who either frequented India or settled down here like the former Deutsche banker Bernhard Steinruecke to McKinsey alum Kito de Boer and wife Jane or Japanese sea food exporter Masanori Fukuoka who single-handedly whipped up a storm among global buyers for modern Indian art.

“Many expat collectors with deep India connections have been traced and chased by the global auction houses for years to consign individual works. Recently we have seen many monetising their private collections of mostly Indian modernist painters,” says art advisor Mukeeta Jhaveri. “Having impeccable provenance, these single owner sales of Indian masters have livened up the art market even during the pandemic, but at a great cost to contemporary artists. Like the virus we can only hope for a contagion effect.”

Gallerist Puneet Shah says collectors have realised that buying extremely high-quality works of art has proved to be a very solid investment as compared to many other asset classes right now. Shah, founder at Akara Art Gallery in Mumbai, says the market for the masters has been very strong, contrary to the expectations of everyone in the global art world in April and May after the pandemic hit.

Gallerist Puneet Shah says collectors have realised that buying extremely high-quality works of art has proved to be a very solid investment.