Picasso works are a hit in Delhi

It could not have been a better start for the first sale of Pablo Picasso works in India. About ten of the 40 Picasso-signed odds and ends (prints and ceramics among others) were sold on the opening night on Wednesday at Vadehra Art Gallery in Okhla.

Collectors and a couple of artists from Delhi were the first to take home the pieces, curated by the Grosvenor Gallery (London), Vadehra's trading partner. Though the gallery did not give the exact rates, sources said the works went for anything between Rs 5 lakh and Rs 50 lakh.

Art dealers and big collectors like Amit Judge, Dinesh Vazirani, Yogesh Jain, Neeraj Batra, Rajiv Savara and V.K. Malhotra attended the first day of the show. The art frat showed up too. Painters Ramachandran, Arpita and Paramjeet Singh, Gopi Gajwani and sculptor Radhakrishnan went through the works.

Anjolie Ela Menon went a step ahead: she saw the works before the show was opened.

Also spotted was Japanese collector Fukuoka Masanori, whose favourite Indian painters are Tyeb Mehta and Jogen Chowdhury. But he did not do any shopping - not yet.

The Rs 9-crore sale will be on till March 2. So there is still time to pick the work that's top-priced at $90,000: Grand Tete de Femme (Large head of a woman) from a limited edition of 50 linocut prints. By the way, one of it adorns New York's famous Museum of Modern Art (MOMA).

So where’s this  one headed for -- for someone’s home, away from taxman’s gaze, or a gallery?