Tapping Bangalore as the next big art haunt, auction house Bid & Hammer are holding their next auction this June 15, featuring Modern and Contemporary Indian Art. Its total offerings for the upcoming auction, comprising 101 lots, is pegged at around Rs 7 crore and the chairman of the auction house, Maher Dadha, believes Bangalore could become the next big art destination, even rivaling Mumbai.

Bangalore is the third largest centre for high net-worth individuals. “Today, Indian art—Modern and Contemporary— is being recognised as a worthy investment option among the nouveau riche both nationally and internationally,” says Dadha, a collector himself and erstwhile director of a pharmaceutical company.

“Bid & Hammer paves the way for art connoisseurs in the city and across India to venture no further than home soil,” says Dadha whose auction house provides an number of services from authentication, provenance, valuation, conservation and restoration, across all major categories of fine and decorative arts and antiques. “This arrangement to have all facilities under one roof is currently unavailable in India,’ he adds. Dadha who is also the chief consultant of Dukan, a fine art and antiques gallery based in Bangalore.

In a market as fierce as today’s what makes Bid & Hammer stand out? “Our USP lies in the fact that we intend to unearth the potential of not only Modern and Contemporary Indian art but also other fine art categories in the southern Indian market,’’ says Dadha.

What’s worth checking out in the current auction? There are rare works by Jamini Roy, one that bares his style and signature but is quite different from his later style that was vastly duplicated. The work is a National Art Treasure and hence a non-exportable item, it is up for bid for the asking price of Rs 12.5 lakh to Rs 14 lakh.

The auction also has a rare work by Goan artist Antonio Xavier Tridade, a Portuguese Catholic who settled in Mumbai where he studied at the J J School of Art, and worked with Raja Deen Dayal, where he tinted photographs. The work up for auction, Female Nude, is painted in a sentimental composition reminiscent of the Classical Western nude save for the dark hair and eyes that marks it as Indian.