The indefatigable Chitkoo Lall (name not changed) hawked public issues in the early 90s, quickly changing to DTP services, LIC, World Book, PCs, Amway, Tupperware, herbals… his hapless quarry being the docile well-heeled gentry living around Linking Road in suburban Mumbai. Bag in hand, he strides the lanes, sharp gaze missing nothing. Prey between his claws, he pumps the skull with hundred bullet-like syllables a second until total surrender or violent retaliation. Not surprising, he cornered me last month with his latest business model – “No-bat’r-b’nass-than-art-pantings-I-tell-you,” he gushed as we converged on 12th Road, just outside the Pradarshak Art Gallery which had just begun its work on the annual Vidyarthi Vishesh, a show by chosen graduating artists.
Chitkoo’s idea was simple: to buy masterpieces of “ ’ssain Sa’b, Akbarji, Tyebji, Gemini Roy, etc.” with your money and mine, with a tiny entry fee thrown in. Each of us ‘members’ would then get to keep the paintings, by rotation. Meanwhile he would scour the US and EU for the best prices and we would be zillionaires in just a matter of months. He would take a tinier fraction as exit fee if we wanted to book profits and repeat this glorious cycle. In Phase Two, Chitkoo planned to extend his buying region to all Asia and Africa, what with the West market in his pocket. He went on to explain the details, like cutting risks by making the artists advance the works on part credit. To pick the works?
“You know all artist-shartists, yaar. Just come with me. How much profit-share you want?” he shot back.
Ever the bad businessman, I aimed a kick and expletives when I should have hugged him. To me this seems a flawed model to say the least, even if there are a number of art clubs, art mutual funds, on-line and offline art banks, an artist pension scheme and what-have-you, all very close to this one.
Firstly, raw speculation in art is blind man’s buff. There is no hard valuation, neither a market exchange nor regulator, as in shares or bulk commodities. The artist invariably begins his career selling on a cost-plus basis until informed collectors and critics assign significance to this artist’s contribution to a style, school or genre and thus the work commands a premium. Demand-supply factors nominally correct this price. To cite a recent report, Bonham’s in England raised big money at an auction of FN Souza’s drawings. But that auction was exclusively of drawings during his London tenure long ago, which are in special demand. That would not mean that any FN Souza drawing would fetch you the same premium overnight. Likewise, if a chunk of our grand old masters’ lifetime work fetched the much-hyped Crore - which a fresh MBA from a good B-School is offered yearly - the painting in question was most probably composed three decades ago, part of a very limited series and sold at four-digit Rupees then. While some collector in the chain possibly paid a fortune and recovered it from the auction house, the painter continues a respectable upper-middle-class existence but of late, hounded by offers of every kind of hot deal if not taxmen with funny ideas! Sure, there would be a rub-off on other works in that series by this artist, also on his other works, but the extent is certainly not predictable. So, if there is a 3 or 4 digit long-term profit in art as investment, there is this risk too.
Here we come to another myth. Art collection is not restricted to big money plays. I have seen several academics, executives, doctors and other professionals save from their modest salaries to pick up an odd sculpture, painting, pottery and print or charcoal drawing from art students and junior artists from their studio, debut exhibition or an institutional event like the Fine Arts Fair at Baroda. Some have picked selected works of particular artists over the years. As the artist got recognised and individual works gained their significance, these collectors got the choice to sell, either to buy one masterpiece of their dreams or to subsidise some family expenses. Many have not parted with any of the booty, satisfied in their gaining value. Their selection is based on readings or exposure and an eye for art that a well-rounded education is supposed to get you, like the ear for music. Their observation of finesse, conformance to a style and school are akin to the way you and I look at stamps and coins as we learn more about them as we go along, to be able to tell the wheat from the chaff, appreciate the gems and buy them. How else would you tell if a given First Day Cover is worth Rs 500 or 12,000 and why?
An organised collector does some prior research before embarking on a purchase, just as you would look at some equity research before taking that leap into buying shares or equity funds. You gather data to assure yourself of the right pick, consult a genuine expert or two and trust no one. Not even me! The best sources of information about contemporary Indian art and artists are the publications and libraries of the national Lalit Kala Akademi, National Gallery of Modern Art, National Museum, and several art colleges as well as museums all over India. These bodies collect works while the LKA and NGMA further organise several State and National level exhibitions. The LKA also holds an international three-yearly Indian Triennale. They also host travelling shows from overseas. [The full list of institutions, schools and events is beyond the scope of this article, as is even an outline of the various institutes, prevalent styles and schools of art in India.] Of particular interest are the artists’ directory and paperbacks on a number of artists, giving a brief biography, critique and photographs of selected works published by the Lalit Kala Akademi. Independent publishers like Marg Publications have published volumes of deep and extensive studies with excellent visuals too. Among authors, one can cite names like The Drs Ananda K Coomaraswamy and C Sivarammurthi among historians, Jaya Appaswamy, Nissim Ezekiel and Sudhir Khastgir among the seniors, Dnyaneshwar Nadkarni, Prof. Ghulam Sheikh and Dr Ratan Parimoo, to name a few eminent critics on the contemporary art scene.
India is as rich in artists promising and ‘arrived,’ as it is rich in multiple art forms. This means a whole choice of what to collect and something for every pocket. Your buy need not always be some heavily researched art purchase to enrich a corporate treasury. It can begin with a simple piece to adorn your room.. The choice can run from, say, stone & wood carvings, bronze and other non-ferrous castings, terracotta panels, fired clay statuettes, sheet-metal forms, fibreglass and resin cast forms in sculpture, to earthenware and stoneware pottery in ceramic art, to various charcoal, pastel crayon, enamel, acrylic paint or water-colour creations on paper or canvas, or ‘mixed media’ in paintings, to serigraphs or silk-screen prints, lithographs, wood and lino cut, burnished or etched zinc, aqua-tint and meso-tint or rocker-textured copper plate prints, to graphics combining the processes of photography with the creativity of painting, sometimes blending the materials of both. Each of these forms is linked to a theme, style and school, thus linked to the art history of that region in India. Here, apart from the library and faculty of your local art college and museum, liaison with a local artists group, art gallery or art society can also provide valuable learning. In addition, many towns have at least one well-known collection going back to the local Maharaja, an old business family or industrialist who would commission works to adorn his residence or palace. A few of these are open to you for a fee and give a good indication of the local school or art history.
In the ethnic space, every region in our country has its forte in one traditional art form if not a tribal art form or another. Some of these forms merge into crafts and so deployed to make several objects of your daily use, like fabric, garments, upholstery, tapestry, papier-mache toys, lacquer-ware, statuettes, footwear, purses and wallets, wall hangings, leather-jackets etc. that are assisted by bodies like the Khadi & Village Industries Commission and All India Handicrafts Board. Notably, two organisations (CCIC) Crafts & Cottage Industries Corporation and (HHEC) Handloom & Handicrafts Export Corporation with its affiliated State Export Corporations run a chain of State Emporia and popularly known “Cottage Industries” outlets located at New Delhi and all important cities. A visit to each of these gives a very good exposure of the kind of work being done and offers you a wide choice in budget and form. However, each ware on display is not strictly ethnic art, but often reflective of a region’s ethnic talent.
Every artist observes different things or reacts to different ideas and evolves a theme to shape, texture and colour to put together his or her work. The artist’s job is “1% inspiration, 99% perspiration,” labourious, disciplined and capital-intensive like a serious result-oriented R&D project. First, several rough sketches or sketch-models help to evolve the basic concept. This is followed by another effort to distil all ideas into a finite form. These may comprise of mackets or indicative models in sculpture and coloured compositions drawn on tracing paper in graphics, print-making or painting. It takes several repeat cycles from sketch to composition and back in order to select the best one for a final work attempt. In many cases, the final attempt may await a ‘commission’ or go-ahead from a prospective buyer. Accordingly, the artist would execute the work according to medium. At this stage there is a play between the concept and medium and hence, more iterative cycles. All this can be a drain on resources with little earning potential to the artist in the early years. Financial stability comes only after a degree of recognition, if at all. Often, artists support themselves with other jobs while gallery owners combining sagacity and unquestioned integrity make good by identifying talent and advancing money with the rider of having the first pick. Philanthropic rulers and business barons are also known to have supported upcoming artists by providing scholarships or appointing artists-in-residence. Quite a few of these have culminated in the formation of trusts like the Birla Academy of Art and others. Liaison with reputable art galleries and such patron bodies is also valuable, even if some reputations have come under a cloud of late.
Scores of works along the theme or along several visualisations evolve a unique style and a discipline. With time and more experience that style points to a way of thinking about the visualised subjects, often a philosophy conforming to a body of artists in an institution, or even across countries. With more maturity, that artist contributes to that style or school and thus gains from his work being correlated to more established artists and their valuations, sometimes across the planet from us. In rare cases of brilliance, critics and historians perceive one artist’s work as schools by themselves. This perhaps explains why the expert art valuator working for a foreign institutional buyer like Christies or Sotheby’s offers large sums of money for a painting by our veterans. It takes a very well informed, mature and experienced critic and valuator to correlate a given work in conformity to an established genre of masters and take the risk to buy it at such a large price. Here it pays to take good counsel from a qualified art historian and critic.
Like any prudent investor, a good art buyer never drives demand. Yet a high buying offer could be a ploy to draw sale offers (usually slides and basic information) for other works in the same series that are not otherwise traceable. This often happens because the work or whole series is sought after several years after its creation and multiple ownership changes may take place. Otherwise, keen collectors use a nibble strategy, picking one kind of work to build a directed or focused collection. Some collectors further provide for a gulp strategy and tap a pre-planned reserve or windfall earning to pick up a rare bargain or a masterpiece beyond the regular fare. Either way, there should be enough holding capacity. Houses like Christies hold magnificent collections of their own in addition to what they auction.
Corporate and institutional collectors play a major role. First, the art of a region a document of its culture and civilisation and collecting these is a record for posterity. Besides, not all art is affordable by an individual. We have a centuries-old tradition of rulers followed by visionary businessmen and industrialists, who not only collected and commissioned works by local artists but also encouraged exchanges of artists between countries that they either had strategic relations or trade pacts. This naturally resulted in enrichment of creativity in both countries. A number of their sites are now museums. Many of our corporate houses regularly acquire and showcase their collections at their headquarters even if access is limited. Sponsoring and hosting art camps by seasoned collectors are also in vogue. Next, just like we need a strong science base to develop a technology base, we cannot become the fashion capital of the world and neither can we develop an Indian design base – much needed to join a globalised industry – without developing a strong Indian art base. E.g. giants like GM have as big studios as engineering departments in their design centres. Microsoft too employs a few hundred graphic artists.
Newspapers once used to be a good source of guidance to the art prospector and aficionado. Periodic art columns gave good insights to the local art scene and a number of eminent critics fed these columns. Scholarly editors in the old genre were known to be well-read and often walked into a one-man-show to offer very pertinent advice or a word of encouragement to a deserving artist. Sadly, with editors increasingly losing touch, not having a transparent system of selecting writers to fill specialised columns and a dearth of articulate art history and art criticism post-graduates, a lot of art columns got mired in controversy and closed down their art sections entirely from the late 80s on, ironically the same period that Indian art collection began to acquire a glamorous flavour. Some artists are seen in Page 3 but not for their talent. And it is rumoured that a trainee-journalist walked into the NGMA in Mumbai for an appointment with Picasso! With the recent hype, art programmes are making a comeback on TV and one hopes that it will build a good cadre of critics and presenters, given its visual vantage.
Once researched, selected and bought, your prized piece (never make the gaffe of calling it an artwork!) is valuable inventory. Collector or investor, you buy for the long haul. The artist will be too glad to provide tips on where to install it, indoors or outdoors, the best setting at your location. Lighting and weather protection are critical. Coating, frame or housing may be needed. For old works, professional art restoration services are commercially available or accessed via local museum, should these be weathered or damaged. Galleries and local institutions can provide good tips here. In case of expensive work, insurance and security issues must be explored. Public installations are also prone to tampering or defacement.. In case of space constraints, it may be necessary to warehouse a collection, in which case the work should be protected from damp and pests. Judicious uses of camphor, naphthalene or silica gel help this in airtight spaces. It is important to air the work periodically. Some materials react with sunlight while some need to cure in it. Large collections also need cataloguing as well as inventory accounting like any movable asset. This could involve tax compliance work too, needing a good accountant and competent art valuator.
Parting with your collection is yet another can of worms. Selling strategies can be set to proliferate or consolidate. A number of collectors sell a series or sometimes an assorted lot, in order to buy one valuable work, say of a master. Conversely, collectors often ‘unload’ a single prized possession to meet monetary needs, book profit or buy another collection. Often, a collector sells a cherished piece to an institution on finding it unsafe or impracticable to keep it. If a work is held for long, it is wise to consult a competent agency to ascertain the saleable value and other facts such as its significance. Few collectors display a collection in exhibitions, partly to allow other art-lovers to see and partly to ascertain its worth by evaluating feedback from various experts. A sale may or may not result during that show.
I hope I have provided enough tools to build your own learning curve in researching, buying, collecting and selling art – all in your own way, not necessarily because it is hot property. Join the club!
Udit Chuadhuri
uditnc@gmail.com |
