Being India’s biggest collector doesn’t mean hoarding art selfishly. SAHAR ZAMAN gets a sneak peek of Kiran Nadar’s new museum IF YOU have followed the art auctions in the past five years, and wondered who went home with the show-stoppers on the cover of the auction catalogues, look no further than Noida. Here, in the Kiran Nadar Museum of Arts (KNMA), you can gently let your jaw descend at a Raja Ravi Varma from 1894, FN Souza’s Nude with Fruit (1958), MF Husain’s Ganga of the early 1970s, a Raqib Shaw, the first ever seen in India — The Absence of God (2008) — and Anish Kapoor’s untitled electric blue disc from 2009. And all this that is on display, forms only a fraction of Kiran Nadar’s personal collection of 300 works. Luckily, for the rest of us, Kiran likes to share.

A long-term art collector, Kiran plans to open up her collection to the public soon. Kiran is married to HCL founder Shiv Nadar and has dreamt of a museum since 2000. “It’s better to display art than to have it in storage or personal space,” she says. She launched it in January this year at an elegant but make-shift space at the HCL headquarters in Noida. The collection will be housed independently by 2012 in the vicinity. The Nadars have already set aside Rs 600 crore for the museum. It merely awaits an architect who shares Kiran’s vision for a highly contemporary museum. At our first meeting in 2007, during an Osian’s auction, 59- year-old Kiran Nadar was a striking contrast to most art collectors. Indian collectors are usually secretive, nervous as they are about the gentlemen from the Income-Tax department. But Kiran, in her bubbly, exuberant manner, confessed that she loves art and is addicted to buying it. Stepping into the KNMA three years later, it is easy to believe her. Kiran’s collection, with a net worth of Rs 250 crore, is fairly eclectic.

 She has a fantastic collection of Gaitondes and leans towards the moderns. But none of the contemporary art in her collection are minor notes: Subodh Gupta, Atul Dodiya, Jagannath Panda, GR Iranna, TV Santosh and of course, Raqib Shaw. Her final bid for SH Raza’s Saurashtra broke all previous records in the Indian art market — Rs 16.4 crore Kiran is a confident collector who trusts her instincts and likes to enjoy the process of buying art. If you know that she is a formidable bridge player who has played against Bill Gates and represented India at the World Bridge Championship, you will have a sense of the game face that she brings to art collection. At art auctions, she does not have people bid for her. She always bids herself. Take her latest acquisition — one that many column inches around the world were devoted to. In June, Kiran bought SH Raza’s Saurashtra at Christie’s, London. She had seen pictures of it and knew the significance of this seminal 1983 work — a painting from an important period when the Paris-based artist was returning to Indian aesthetics. When she finally saw this most ambitious of Raza’s works, Kiran says she was blown away. The day before, hers had been the runner-up bid for FN Souza’s Red Curse. Bidding for Saurashtra, she was tense, excited but aggressive.

Her final and successful bid broke all records in the Indian art market — $3.49 million (Rs 16.4 crore). Kiran’s vast energy is visible in everything she does. When she worked in advertising, she helped shape the formidable NIIT brand in computer education. An ardent sports-lover she travels 10 days in a month and has just returned from the football World Cup in South Africa. What is surprising, especially standing in her new bastion of high art, is Kiran’s frank enjoyment of pop culture. She is a die-hard fan of reality TV and gleefully says she would love to be the judge for a song and dance show. “I would like to be remembered as somebody who really did everything with commitment,” she says.

The Nadars are quite involved in philanthropic work within the traditional framework. One of their initiatives has been the Vidya Gyan School, a 20-acre campus that provides high-end education to underprivileged children from Uttar Pradesh. But Kiran’s personal crusade in the realm of art education — with little hopes of instant gratification — is one that wealthy Indians have so far been disinterested in. She outlines the dismal terrain clearly, saying, “We just have a handful of serious collectors in our country. Anupam Poddar (of Devi Art Foundation) is showing cutting edge contemporary art in his museum, Rajshri Pathy is planning an art college with a museum of her collection in Coimbatore, Rakhee Sarkar will soon have something in Kolkata, but what about the larger body of Indian corporates who make big profits? There were talks of major houses getting involved which hasn’t fructified. It would be great if more focussed private entrepreneurship came into the museum space.” Through her collection Kiran hopes to influence India’s museum policy for contemporary art. Currently, in India the duty on importing art is a steep 20 to 25 percent, making even ardent collectors pale.

So Saurashtra — the superstar among Kiran’s collection — is still waiting to arrive in India. Kiran says, “We are trying to get the government to give a tax exemption for museums. The tax structure for art is unrealistic in India. China has given a five-year tax holiday to art and the US has zero duty on art. So for a museum, to get this kind of work is important. Culture Secretary Jawahar Sarkar has been very supportive so far to consider a plea to the government that we get a tax exemption for Saurashtra.” Kiran is hopeful of the tax exemption but determined to bring Saurashtra home anyway. She says, “If we can’t get clearance, we will still get it in by paying duty. It’s not often that you get a Raza of this quality.” THE INDIAN art market is only 0.04 percent of the international market. Characteristically, Kiran doesn’t respond to this with platitudes about our steady growth. “A Picasso can go for more than $100 million so where are we at just $3.5 million for a Raza?” she asks. In a country without a museum culture, sustaining the 80,000 sq ft-planned KNMA is bound to be a challenge. But she remains pragmatic about the scene, saying, “Donations and funding for a museum come at a later stage. We are at an initial stage where we are doing it all on our own. You can’t expect people to come and fund you unless you are well-established.”

CEO of on-line Indian auction house Saffronart explains that the collector base for Indian art is changing Dinesh Vazirani is the CEO and Co-Founder of Saffronart, the world’s largest online auction house for fine art and jewelry. In the Podcast interview with ArtTactic, he reviewed the performance of the Indian art market in 2009. He also shared his observations on the changes in the Indian art market in the recent year. Moreover, he shared part of his formula of success in running an online auction platform of such scale. How was the performance of the Indian Art Market in 2009? To what extent has the Indian Art Market recovered from the financial crisis in 2009? A lot of changes happened in the post financial crisis period. The initial six months was a difficult time for the art market. The base of the investors and collectors changed quite dramatically. Investors and speculators that are active in the post financial crisis disappeared from the market. There are real collectors looking for good value and premium quality. In the later part of the year with the Indian economy getting better, confidence and perception changed. We saw some of the collector base come by and want to buy the best of the best. In the early part of the year, prices of modern art retreated by around 30-50% and contemporary art by 50-80%. Modern art prices recovered by 15-30% later in the year and contemporary art came back by 10-15%. In 2009, the Indian market underwent a transitional change. The players changed. Some galleries and auction houses shut down and some opened. How is the heavy presence of speculators a threat to the sustainability of the Indian Art Market? Speculators come into the market and drive up the prices. In 2005 to 2008, prices rose dramatically which brought in a whole slew of speculators, investors, private dealers, collectors and funds. In 2009, after the financial crisis, these players disappeared but they will come back if the value is right. However, it is not expected that they would be jumping into the market as fast as in 2005. This downturn in Indian Art is the first ever downturn in the history of Indian art. Most people have not gone through a downturn to understand the implications of it. What pattern has been developed in the collector base? The previous collectors of Indian Art are large corporate houses and business houses in the India subcontinent. However, in the last five years, the collector based has moved from a business house concentrated end towards a broader collector base, which constitutes a lot of professionals, younger collectors from the finance field and young business people. Interestingly, some are from outside of India. In 2006, more non-Indians collected Indian contemporary art and wanted it as a cultural bridge. What is your outlook for the Indian art market in 2010? Players will be coming back to purchase work and a new base of buyers are expected too. There were people wanting to come in to buy during 2005 to 2008, but the price rose too sharply then, so they want to come in now and see if they can get premium values. 2010 will be dependent on two things. One is the perception and confidence of the Indian base customers and the other is the participation of non-Indian buyers in the post finance crisis period in the art market. Why has Saffronart been so successful as an online auction house when no auction houses have found equal success in this format? For the past 10 years, we have been building up the collector base, giving them the confidence and transparency and improving the technological platform. On the other side, we have been doing physical exhibitions and previews all around the world, including San Francisco, L.A., Mumbai, New Dehli, Hong Kong and London. To make people confident, we added the brick and mortar side. It is the “the click and the brick” that has made Saffronart so successful. Nearly every business is heading to the direction of going online. Is the art market fundamentally changing because of the web? Over time, there will be a strong shift towards online transactions. People will transact more online or even leaning more to mobile bidding platforms. These mobile bidding platforms have been enormously successful.

How do you go about choosing just one artist in 2009 who continued doing what an artist does best: painting with consistency, experimenting, picking up commissions of a certain scale, and commanding top-of-the-bracket prices in that genre? And who would most likely take this forward in 2010 as the face of Indian art and as, probably, its safest blue-chip investment? Trends across 2009 were mostly erratic. Even top artists took a sabbatical, gallery movement before the India Art Summit was almost comatose, plummeting prices meant that most contemporary artists went out of circulation, and investor confidence in art was so low it impacted artists’ morale. It is indicative of contemporary art continuing to remain off-stage in 2010: these artists will show more than they sell, they will experiment more, and some like Jitish Kallat will have a huge impact as ambassadors as they present the intellectual face of Indian art internationally. But no contemporary Indian artist can singly take on the onus of being the face of 2010 — they are showing less, prices still have to rise, and what many of us are getting to see at shows in India or abroad are old works. Others have still to achieve a record of consistency — something that had been ignored in the euphoria that was largely responsible for the crash in prices — and which is why the likes of Sunil Gawde or N S Harsha will have to wait for their spot in the sun. Among the old guard, gallerists I spoke with put forward interesting suggestions ranging all the way from A Ramachandran to Krishen Khanna, whose works I admire but who have not had any path-breaking shows or created an especial stir to qualify for the role, to Satish Gujral, who it was pointed out has perhaps been India’s most consistent artist and one whose prices have not been impacted by the market. While that may be true, his largely “decorative” features and tag as a “society” artist continue to trip him up. Another friend’s suggestion that Paresh Maity be considered for his ability to re-invent himself held some merit, but Maity too has to fight off the “romantic” tag and travel some more distance to move from “investment-worthy” to “collector-worthy”. It was surprising that almost no one I spoke to took cognizance of S H Raza’s great influence on the market — there is a frenzy around collecting him, his prices have remained high, there is a buzz around him every time he returns to India (even if the reason is the artist being invited to inaugurate a show of fakes of his own works!), and at auctions or in galleries, he continues to sell well. But the artist is slowing down because of health-related issues, likely to shift to India, and may take some time settling down before he resumes painting again. That hardly qualifies him as the face of 2010, though his success through the year is at least assured. But by a huge margin, and quite clearly the face of 2009 that will remain the face of 2010, is M F Husain. There was a brief time a few years ago when Husain’s genius was eclipsed, when younger artists were being feted, when some of his peers commanded higher returns at auctions, when he was even dismissed as being too gimmicky or too market-driven. All those nay-sayers can now eat crow. Not only does he make news all the time, and despite staying away from India because of threats to his life (largely exaggerated, I believe, but adding to his aura as an artist-in-exile), Husain continues to thrive. Recent auctions have confirmed his price hierarchy among Indian artists (Tyeb Mehta, who died this year, has not been included in this survey of only living artists), and the scale of his commissions on the Arab civilisation will leave him richer by millions of dollars. Love him or not, you cannot ignore Husain, and if he remained in the news in 2009, he will continue to make headlines in 2010. While many in this informal survey voted for Husain, Saffronart’s Dinesh Vazirani summed it up beautifully: “[Husain] has been working consistently throughout the year, mounting some very large exhibitions internationally. The beginning of the year saw his work in the Serpentine show, followed by a large commission from the Sheikha of Qatar. Even with no exhibitions in India, he is still present in the minds of the art world. He travels the world as an ambassador of Indian art bringing in new collectors at every stage. In spite of the slow year for Indian art, his prices in auctions have been good. He has taken his exile from India in the best possible spirit and continues to work with the same passion that he has had over the last 50 years.” Nothing more need be said.

KOLKATA: A significant element surfacing in the art market in midst of the recession is that auctions, both at home and abroad, have started doing reasonably well at reduced price levels. Prices of artworks, on average, have come down by 40-50%.

Realising that lower prices are triggering sales, auctioneers are pegging their presale reserve prices at competitive brackets.

"Auction prices have clearly climbed down. They may have fallen to pre-boom tags or there about. All forms of art - Modern and Contemporary - have dropped in varying degrees. The only brand of art which has not slipped in a major way is the early genres which, in any case, had not spiralled like the others during the boom. The good in all this is that auctions are showing respectable results at lower prices," an art specialist told ET.

The specialist reiterated that prices in general have slid by by 40-50% "from their peak levels". "This has led to auction sales of roughly 50-70% in terms of lots, which, under the circumstances, is quite healthy. The same has not happened in galleries and studio sales because of the reluctance of many artists to reduce prices. Buyers are also sometimes unaware that prices have actually come down," he said.

According to him, collectors will welcome any opportunity to pick up their favourite artists at lower prices. In fact, a view that is strongly gaining ground that price cuts in art are necessary to revive this market. After all, rise in art prices were significantly higher than the fall. "If a price reduction can fuel sales, the artist will be the final gainer," the specialist said.

"The auctioneers have perceived this and are keeping reserve prices low in the last few auctions. This is not only happening in Indian auctions, but also at international sales. Although the last few auctions have been more or less successful, against the backdrop of this downturn, one is eagerly awaiting the auctions by Sotheby’s, Christie’s and Bonhams in London in June. These auctions are expected to set the trend for art buying in future," the specialist underscored.

It isn’t just India’s politicians but its artists as well who refuse to let age come in the way of their constituency. At different points, different artists have been important not just from the point of view of art aesthetics, or value, but because of the pivotal role they have played in providing the stepping stones with which to monitor the key turns in Indian art. These must necessarily include Raja Ravi Varma less for his kitschy calendar pop-art and more for the fusion of Indian and European idioms that continues to dictate popular taste; the Tagore family for opening up the way art was viewed in India; Nandalal Bose, India’s first truly renaissance artist; and Amrita Sher-Gil for the passion she brought to the form in her very short life.

India’s tryst with modern art traces its origins to roughly the turn of the last century up to India’s independence, and it is the “moderns” — as both the artists and their art is referred to — who define the popular perception of how we view art in this country. Among these, the most radical by far was F N Souza whose provocative drawings and paintings earned him a fair share of ire and more brickbats than bouquets, though it might be said in the same breath that his sensibility lent more towards European extremism than any obvious Indian sensibility.

Souza was a victim of his own excesses, but among those who once shared the platform with him are three painters who without doubt can be regarded as the greatest living artists of this country. Of them, S H Raza, has been referred to also as the greatest living artist of France, and while that might be arguable — his work is collected mostly by Indians — Raza, 87 years, has said that by the end of this year he would like to wind up his atelier in Paris and return to the country of his birth, to probably New Delhi, where he is in the process, with friend Ashok Vajpeyi, of searching for land to create an institution for the arts.

Raza’s record at a Saffronart auction is Rs 4.2 crore, which must seem formidable given that critics have savaged him for repeatedly painting variations of the Bindu and the Mandala, forms that set him apart from his peers, creating a visual language that is both abstract as well as rooted in the tradition of tantra. Raza’s prices have skittered and gained since 2000, and have consolidated after 2003, casting him as a blue-chip, even though critics — and collectors — say Raza’s paintings don’t compel you to want all of his important works since they seem to replicate each other.

India’s most maverick, most loved and equally hated artist is M F Husain, 94 years this August, who single-handedly broke the cordons of exclusivity and took his art mainstream to the masses. From travelling around the world in bare feet to creating a show of crumpled newspapers, he has mocked critics, courted moneyed buyers yet reached out to people, a bond he built as a hoarding artist painting posters for Bollywood marquees. Some of the most iconic images in Indian art have been created from his palette — Mother Teresa, Indira Gandhi, the Lady with the Lamp, vignettes from the Ramayana and the Mahabharata, and of course, his horses. In recent times it seems to be trendy to dismiss Husain’s prodigious talent, but make no mistake: Husain is India’s tour de force of art. Currently at home in Dubai, where he is creating a series on the Arabic civilisation, and in London, where he has a home, Husain has shied away from returning to India fearing for his life from Hindu fundamentalists who have objected to some of his paintings. His prices, always the bellwether index of the art world, have fallen recently, though he has struck the biggest deals for the largest sums of money that any Indian artist has commanded: a gimmicky Rs 100 crore for one such series in India, and an undisclosed sum for his work on the Arab civilisation, making him without a doubt India’s richest living artist.

One reason for the fall in Husain’s price is his proclivity to paint too much, too fast, the exact opposite of Mumbai-based Tyeb Mehta, 84 years, who refuses to let his debilitating health keep him from his canvas. If it appears that Mehta has painted very little, it is because of his tendency to ruthlessly destroy those works that don’t measure up to his critical gaze. In many ways, Mehta could be called minimalist: Since the seventies, his subjects have been mythological. He seems to enjoy scale, but what is most compelling is the energy on his canvases that is at once awesome and fearful. His price point has held steady for many years now, and even though Souza exceeded his auction high of Rs 8.2 crore in a surprise upset last year, there can be no doubt that Tyeb Mehta is not only India’s greatest living artist, his works are most likely to continue to escalate in value over the years.

The past fifteen or so years have seen India’s booming economy dramatically propel the country into the 21st century, bringing with it hitherto-undreamt of possibilities, prosperity and success. And, riding in the slipstream of excitement...

 

unexpected beneficiaries of the sudden affluence, have been the country’s emerging artists, simultaneously enjoying a wave of creativity unequalled since the Modernist movement of the 1950s.

Whereas pre-1990s, the elder statesmen of Modernism — KH Ara, SK Bakre, HA Gade and MF Hussein — dominated the subcontinent’s contemporary art world, recent times have seen a new generation of Indian artists, children of a new inter-connected, multi-cultural world, past the trauma of Independence, embracing a rosy future and commemorating a rich cultural tradition. Artists such as Subodh Gupta, his wife Bharti Kher, Jitish Kallat and Atul Dodiyat came to embody the dynamic, progressive outlook that characterised the best in the burgeoning art scene.

But amidst the current global sturm und drang, the Indian art market has suffered a remarkable battering. The days of profligate spending by speculators and investors, buoyed by mirage-like visions of quick profits and huge returns, have brought the market skidding to a halt in line with the powering-down of the economy.

In September last year, a Sotheby’s auction reported all Indian lots unsold — a statistic unthinkable only a year ago. Around the same time, leading industry experts, UK-based ArtTactic gloomily reported a sharp decline in the overall market activity during the latter part of 2008 — a 71 per cent drop in the overall market since October 2007, startling intelligence whichever way one looks at it.

The news, as is so often the case, served as a self-fulfilling prophecy. Last December, one of India’s leading auction houses, Saffron Art in Mumbai saw sales at auction fall from an average of $7 million throughout the year to just $2.8 million. And just last month, the special Indian exhibition at ARCO, one of the world’s leading art fairs, failed spectacularly to entice buyers who, even only last year, would have been eagerly proffering chequebooks for the assorted pieces, largely by up-and-coming youngsters, precisely the kind of work that would have second-wave speculators clamouring.

So is the dream over for India? Is this a cataclysmic meltdown, or in that eternally-hopeful phrase, merely a ‘correction’ in the country’s art market?

One gallery dealer in the Middle East [who wished to remain anonymous], with extensive experience in both the Indian and Gulf markets, sees the current economic crisis as an invaluable opportunity to reboot the parameters of the Indian art market. Citing the greed and harmful effects of speculation within recent years as key factors in pushing the market to a point where sustainability became impossible, this dealer believes that the current situation is a much-needed cold shower for the Indian art scene.

“It is indeed a shocking plight for the art world. People are scared to put their money anywhere today, so I guess it’s wait and watch for the next few months to see where things go from here. A few galleries and investors, in need of money, are now selling works at really good prices. And great works at that. These works wouldn’t see the light of day in a booming market.”

Recent years have produced a clutch of new art superstars, whose unique stylings and dedication to broadening the spectrum of media have made India synonymous with progressive, experimental art. Probably the best known of the current crop is Subodh Gupta, a 44-year old from Bihar, whose palette seems to know no bounds. Leaping with agility across disciplines, his paintings, videos, installations and sculptures articulate the heart of the new wave of Indian art perfectly—sharp, witty pieces that combine traditional elements of Indian life and tradition with Western forms and techniques, that coalesce into sexy, desirable, inspirational pieces.

While Gupta has transcended local markets, gained a prestigious dealership and is featured in museum-quality shows around the world, his work remains rooted deeply in his rural upbringing, mundane household items, pots, pans — the everyday detritus of life brilliantly re-cast amidst thought-provoking contexts and systems — demonstrates the combination of elements that appear to resonate most with foreign collectors. But it was the confidence created by marketability of the new superstars such as Gupta, Jitin Kallat or Bharti Kher which occasioned hysteria amidst investors. According to the dealer, this influx of cash quickly caused problems.

“There were injections of large amounts of money from Indian and foreign investors, international museums were getting into Indian art, art was seen as a status symbol, and there was a lot of hanky panky, all leading to artificial price rises. But this very fragile balance could only be maintained artificially, as long as there was surplus money in the market…”

And for a while there, there was plenty. Only last April a new gallery was opening in Mumbai every week, and sell-out openings were considered standard. Now, the reverse appears to be the case.

There is also concern over the fate of the numerous art funds that have sprung up over recent times, which encouraged smaller investors to put their money into a managed fund, that would purchase art works, betting on their future success at auction, to realise generous returns for stakeholders, With estimates of around $30 to $40million having been poured into these funds during the past four years, the stakes are high — and the likelihood of lucrative gains seems now, remote.

“Lots of people entered the market without adequate knowledge, to make a quick buck,” reflects the dealer. “Art funds today are a disaster waiting to explode. Everything stays covered up with false valuations till it is time to sell. And that time is nearing for a few of the older funds. Lets wait and see. I think a lot of people who are based in Dubai and have invested in such funds will be disappointed.”

Certainly, the art market is holding its breath, twitchily analysing the result of every auction and fair, hoping to see hints of previous glory days returning, despite the economic gloom.

But while some hedge their bets — Christie’s auctioneers, for instance, have cut back on their planned March Indian art auctions in New York, pessimistically predicting a take averaging around a third of their September 2006 bonanza of $18m — the slump in prices has made work accessible again, and there are still buyers to be found for classic Modernist works. Last month, Osians auction house in Kolkota reported reasonably healthy sales for MF Hussein, Hemen Mazumdar and J Sultan Ali, icons of a bygone age, who can still persuade blue-chip collectors to spend. And the boom and bust has had the effect of re-focusing attention on the galleries, and shifting emphasis away from auctioneers.

And while there may be fiscal stalling, the leading lights of the younger scene show no sign of stagnating, as a superb new group show at London’s Serpentine gallery, Indian Highway is currently demonstrating.

Amidst the rollcall of iconic names, including MF Hussein to Subodh Gupta and Jitish Kallat, the fresh work demonstrates how these artists continue to develop their distinctive techniques, away now from the pressures of an over-heated market and the attendant temptations to relax and churn out identikit cash-magnet work, and instead, retreat and focus on developing the ideas and practices that first catapulted them into the global spotlight.

With this breathing space, it’s hoped that the next wave of Indian art will reflect the sobering lessons learned from this strange, uncertain period. As the anonymous source has it: “This has been indeed a shocking plight for the art world. People are scared. I guess it’s wait and watch for the next few months to see where things will go from here.”

What is an original Print?  Read and also watch videos in our video section which show different ways of printing visually and our Spotlight Artist is a Printmaker.

The artist's hand

An Original Print is an image printed by the artist or an assistant. The image on the plate is hand made by the artist. They are also known as Artists' Prints. Prints made from blocks or screens are also included.

Limited editions

A limited edition is not necessarily an original print, although most original prints these days are limited editions!

Limited but not 'Original'. The number of reproductions printed of artists' paintings or photographs are limited by the publisher or the artist. The publisher undertakes to produce a pre-determined number of the reproductions, thus retaining control over the quality and distribution of the print. This sometimes results in increasing its value both at the first release and in the second collector's market depending on demand. They may be commercially produced lithographs, screen prints and various other methods of printing. The prints may be signed by the artist, but not necessarily.

The number of prints and the size of the edition are indicated by a numerical fraction.
17/100 would tell you that that the prints are limited to 100 copies, and that this is the seventeenth of the run. In the case of an original print, the prints will often be made a few at a time until the limit is reached. Up to 10% of the number of the edition can be trial prints made before printing the edition and can be sold as Artists' Proofs. The Plate may subsequently be modified and these may therefore be unique. This is indicated by A/P. The artist may also decide to make another edition using the same plate in a different colour-way or by altering the plate in some way. Some types of plate are more susceptible to deterioration than others, making the earlier prints of an edition more desirable in some instances.

Different methods of Printing

Wood Cut

Wood cut is where the wood used is cut with the grain to produce the surface to be worked. The texture of the grain can be used as part of the image and the grain can influence the flow of the cut.

Wood engravings are made, usually of boxwood, cut across the grain, the end grain becoming the working surface.

It is cut with a gouge called a burin. This very smooth and stable surface will allow extraordinary degrees of detail in the hands of a skilled artist or craftsperson. Very fine and detailed examples of early wood engraving are often seen in book illustration, although now they are more often made as stand-alone works.




Lithographs


The printing process which creates a lithograph is different from other traditional methods. Most printing presses require the printmaker to etch an image or text into metal plates or physically carve out the image on blocks of wood or other soft material. To create a lithograph, however, no etching is required. The artist uses a set of greasy crayons or pencils to draw a mirrored image of the original artwork onto a smooth stone tablet. This is by far the most time-consuming part of the lithograph process.

After the image has been recreated to the satisfaction of the original artist or other authority, it is ready to be turned into a lithograph. The lithographic process hinges on the principle that oil and water cannot mix. An oil-based variety of ink is applied directly to the plate and immediately bonds with the equally greasy crayon lines. Water is then wiped onto the remaining unpainted areas to discourage the ink from smearing. A sheet of paper, preferably one with a high cotton content, is then placed over the entire plate.

The inked stone or metal plate and the paper are placed in a press and light pressure is used to transfer some of the ink. If the original image were a monochrome pen and ink drawing, this would be the only press run necessary. A color lithograph of an elaborate Van Gogh painting, however, might require several different runs with up to four different color inks -- black, red, yellow and blue. The same paper would be placed precisely over the re-inked plates, eventually creating a satisfactory lithograph copy. This same process is used to create color pages in newspapers.

Since the process for creating a lithograph can be just as time-consuming and detailed as an original painting, printing runs are often kept low to preserve value.

 
Lino-cut

Lino-cuts have a style of their own too. Again the white parts of the image are cut away leaving the raised part to produce the image. Due to the ease of cutting into this rather softer material, there is a freedom of movement which can produce quite spontaneous looking images, whilst retaining clean edges to the cut. It can also be
very bold when large smooth areas are left for printing. Board can also be used in this way.

Colour prints can be made using several plates and printing them one after another, carefully lining them up with the image already made by the previous print. This is known as 'register'. Another method used in lino cutting for colour prints is to progressively remove more of the surface to make the next layer of colour so that, with each layer the previous layer has been permanently destroyed. You have to be sure how many prints you want with the first layer, and print them, as that part of the plate will no longer exist once you move on!


Intaglio

Ink in the dips

Intaglio is the term used for any plate that produces the inked part of the image from grooves or textures made in it. The ink is applied with a pad (a dabber) to fill the grooves and is wiped from the surface. Damp paper is placed on the plate and the ink transferred to it under pressure. The pressure required is much greater than that needed for relief printing. The depth and size of the pit holding the ink will determine the amount of ink transferred and the degree of texture achieved. Great subtlety of tone can be achieved as well as textured qualities.

The paper is soaked and allowed to return to 'damp' in order to allow the stretching required to be pushed into the hollows and around the edges of the plate. A 'sandwich' of the inked plate, the damp paper, protective tissue and a very soft wool blanket is made and the whole is passed through the press. The blanket allows the paper to be squashed into the grooves and around the edges of the plate. The 'plate mark' often referred to when looking at old prints is the mark made by the edge of the plate.

Let's look at some of the ways of making intaglio prints.

Engraving

Engraving is the term used when the lines or dots are cut out of the material (wood or metal) using a burin. A burin is a hand tool used by cutting into the material to gouge out the hollows. The width and depth of the line is controlled by the hand of the artist.
Various means are employed to achieve the semblance of light and shade in the finished print. Lines of varying width, parallel lines, cross-hatching and dots are used. It is a very labour intensive process, early engravings taking many weeks and months to complete. It was formerly used in the publication of books and prints, but is now mostly used by artists fascinated by the medium. As etching came into being, so a mixture of the two techniques was widely used in publications of all sorts, engraving providing crispness and accent and etching providing tone and the main design.

Drypoint

The artist draws directly onto the metal plate with a sharp strong needle. As the metal is not being cut away, but scratched, burrs appear at the edges of the line which soften it. As impressions are made of the print, so these little burrs are worn away and the character of the print changes. For this reason, editions of drypoints will often be quite small. However, sometimes the artist will deliberately smooth away the burrs to gain the effect they want. Etchings and engravings will sometimes have elements of drypoint in them.

Etching

Etching is the eating away of metal by immersing it in acid to produce the recessed areas. The variation in the depth of line or texture is controlled by the length of time the plate is in the acid. The plate may be immersed numerous times and washed off as further work is done on the plate. Enormous variation in tone and texture is possible in etching by using different methods of protecting parts of the plate from the acid.

Etching is marvellously varied in the ways of keeping the acid from the parts which need to be lighter, each of them producing very different effects. There can be mixed methods used on a single plate, and can also be combined with engraving and drypoint.

The simplest method is to prepare a metal plate of copper or zinc by applying a coat of wax or resin (known as a 'ground') to protect the parts not to be 'bitten'. The artist then draws with an etching needle directly onto the plate exposing the metal, and puts it into the acid. This can be done repeatedly, so that the lines drawn are etched by degrees. With each dipping the earlier lines will become deeper and wider and therefore produce a darker area than those lines added later. The longer the immersion the deeper the bite.

Soft ground is used when the desired effect is similar to that of a pencil mark. The even coating of soft wax can be overlaid with a thin tissue and the drawing done on it. When the tissue is pulled away, it pulls away the wax stuck to it, leaving traces on the surface and giving a soft edge. The pressure applied in the initial drawing will affect the amount of wax removed. Artists can also press textured materials such as cloth and sandpaper into the ground to make tonal areas. Marvellous, isn't it?

 

Aquatint

Aquatint requires the artist to think in areas of tone. The resist is a powdered resin melted onto the surface of the plate. The distribution and size of the powder grains will determine the delicacy or roughness of the etching, both qualities being desirable depending on the subject and desired effect. The variation in tone is achieved by 'stopping out' lighter areas bit by bit, immersing in acid repeatedly, taking 'proofs' until the required image is gained. Test strips can be made to ascertain the length of time needed to gain the depth of tone for different areas. Varnish is generally used for stopping out. The tone changes can be very subtle with many stages. Completely smooth or white areas are stopped out before the first dunking in acid.

A plate can be made using aquatint exclusively, or by combining with other methods to make the finished image.

By now we begin to see why the artist's hackles rise at the term "just a print" and I have hardly touched on the details!

Mezzotint

The mezzotint plate is first prepared by making the surface rough. A rocker or wheel with lots of tiny points is run back a forth over the plate until an even velvety looking surface is made. If you were to print it at this stage it would be very deep black all over. A burnisher is then used to bring back areas of the plate to white. Infinite levels of tone and half-tone can be made by varying the amount of polishing back to smooth. Effects of almost a photographic or sprayed quality can be achieved.


Giclee

Giclee (zhee-klay) - The French word "giclée" is a feminine noun that means a spray or a spurt of liquid. The term  "giclee print" connotes an elevation in printmaking technology. Images are generated from high resolution digital scans and printed with archival quality inks onto various substrates including canvas, fine art, and photo-base paper. The giclee printing process provides better color accuracy than other means of reproduction.

Giclee prints are created typically using professional 8-Color to 12-Color ink-jet printers. Among the manufacturers of these printers are vanguards such as Epson, MacDermid Colorspan, & Hewlett-Packard. These modern technology printers are capable of producing incredibly detailed prints for both the fine art and photographic markets. Giclee prints are sometimes mistakenly referred to as Iris prints, which are 4-Color ink-jet prints from a printer pioneered in the late 1970s by Iris Graphics.

Giclee prints are advantageous to artists who do not find it feasible to mass produce their work, but want to reproduce their art as needed, or on-demand. Once an image is digitally archived, additional reproductions can be made with minimal effort and reasonable cost. Another tremendous advantage of giclee printing is that digital images can be reproduced to almost any size and onto various media, giving the artist the ability to customize prints for a specific client.

 

How organised is the fake business in India? A lot of collectors will be asking themselves this in the wake of the Raza scandal that experts are already calling the Satyam of the art world. On Saturday evening, when 86-year-old, Paris-based artist SH Raza came to Dhoomimal Art Gallery in Delhi’s Connaught Place, to inaugurate a show of his own works put together by his nephew, he was shocked to find that barring a few of his drawings, all the other works were fakes.

Last year, Gallery Espace’s Renu Modi faced similar ignominy when a show of Somnath Hore’s works was claimed by the artist’s family as fakes. Modi refutes the charge, says she has the legal papers et cetera, but says that in the absence of authentication committees and technology, frauds and faking will not just continue, it will become more rampant. “Artists don’t have their works catalogued, we don’t have artists' estates, so with increased valuations fakes will continue,” she says.

Uma Jain of the 70-year-old Dhoomimal Art Gallery has absolved herself of all responsibility, saying the works were consigned to the exhibition by the artist’s nephew, with the artist’s permission, and since she had the artist coming for the inauguration, she had not sought further validation. “When Raza sa’ab expressed some doubt about the works, I had the exhibition closed, says Jain, who unlike Modi, had not bought the works. “I do not buy even a single work for the gallery unless it is directly from the artist, or is authenticated by the artist.”

Which is very well in case the artist is living — though Art Alive’s Sunaina Anand says some artists refuse to provide authentication despite selling works against cheque payments — but in the case of dead artists, that due diligence becomes even more difficult.

Cases of faking usually start when valuations of works start increasing, and have included in the past several Bengal school artists like Jamini Roy (probably the most faked artist in India), Ganesh Pyne and Bikash Bhattacharjee (one of whose works was dramatically pulled out of an auction in New Delhi four years ago), Progressives like M F Husain (whose works most recently were pulled out of a London auction), F N Souza, Anjolie Ela Menon, J Swaminathan and Manjit Bawa (whose daughter Bhavna has registered all the works in the family after the first fakes were spotted in the market). “Most artists whose works are faked are Moderns,” says Delhi Art Gallery’s Ashish Anand – among them Jamini Roy, Ramkinkar Baij and the Tagores – but rarely the Contemporaries, though a fake Subodh Gupta has at least been spotted.

The Raza scam could be a pointer to a much larger fraud that might include, some say, a school or atelier in Bhopal that specialises in copying fakes – though similar allegations were made in the past about the Bengal School in Kolkata and the Progressives in Mumbai. This, too, is hardly surprising given how even framers’ studios ask art students or unemployed artists to copy popular works and artists for their clients for a small retainer fee. This also fits into Delhi Art Gallery’s Ashish Anand’s theory that “there are some people out there who are intentionally buying fake works” for the social prestige rather than as art lovers or as investors.

According to Ashish Anand, on average, there could be as many as 3,000 fakes that get made every year, and even if 10 per cent of that manage to sell, there could be 300 fake works sold every year. However, a top gallerist says this figure might be too modest – remember that a Raza sold at a London auction in June last year for Rs 10.6 crore, so the stakes are very high – and that thousands of faked works might not just be in circulation in the market but are actually bought or sold for hundreds of crores.

At a time when buyers are seeking authentication, they are easily misled by those claiming that the first sale of the work was paid for in cash – leaving behind no paper trail – and that till the eighties and early nineties, no artists cared for documentation, and therefore there is no paperwork assuring them of guarantee.

But the Raza fakes seem Indian Art Inc’s most audacious bid yet, to seek authentication from the artist himself. The perpetrators of the fraud are not answering to the charges, and considering it’s in the family, Raza might even drop any charges, but for buyers, and gallerists, it is only a pointer to the need to get an authentication machinery in place – or else, says Anand, “Buyers of early artists, the Moderns, will lose faith in their works, even if they are in their own collection.”

The general perception is that interest in art has dwindled to such an extent that no one is buying art. While it is true that the amount of
money that is being spent on art has gone down considerably, and that many galleries and dealers are affected , you can still come across many buyers who are continuing to buy art for its intrinsic value and also as an investment. The economic recession has affected most businesses. At the same time, there are people who are comparatively unaffected in the present situation.

There are still many people who attend art show previews and other events. Some of them even end up buying paintings that they like. The category of art priced between Rs 15,000 and Rs 50,000 has the maximum sales. Most of these works are either decorative or done by upcoming artists, and even final year students from fine art institutes . It can also be noticed that most artists are now open to negotiation as far as prices are concerned. The boom time for art is definitely over and the plateau that you see now reflects a healthier trend in the art market.

This phase is expected to allow artists and other members of the art community some breathing space which should eventually help the market. Greater introspection, more time and space to explore creativity , and focus on business ethics will help in strengthening the market in the long term. As most analysts point out, this period of adjustment will help in the consolidation and stabilisation of the art market. Well, it is important to begin the year on a positive note.

Most major art events such as fairs and seminars are going as per schedule. As galleries point out, it is important to continue with their events in order to keep the interest in art alive. The year 2009 will be significant in establishing and charting out the course that the art market will take in the years to come.

KOLKATA: There’s little doubt that the global financial meltdown has dented the art market to a degree. Historical data suggest that art markets d
ecline 6-12 months after a financial crash. However, in the present debacle, the reaction seems to have been quicker.

The downswing in the art scene, however, has also extended opportunities to the avid collector to lap up quality works of modernist masters and heritage artists from, for instance, the Bengal School of Art at prices lower than the highs achieved during the boom time.

Mr Nirmalya Kumar, a top UK-based art collector and professor of marketing at the London Business School, told ET: “The September 2008 auctions by Sotheby’s and Christie’s in New York did not fare too badly. But, the recent auction of Indian and Islamic art in London clearly indicates that the crisis is taking its toll. Not only were a number of lots left unsold, many of them either fell short of the minimum estimate or just touched the minimum level. I managed to pick up a beautiful Francis Newton Souza for just £5,000. From an investment angle, one should definitely avoid acquiring contemporary artists, who have ascended dramatically over the past 24 months. There’s every possibility that their prices could fall in the next six months.”

The positive side of all this, Mr Kumar said, is that the top-quality works of modern masters, such as Souza, Husain and Raza, will retain their value. At the same time, heritage artists, including those from the Bengal School like Rabindranath Tagore, Jamini Roy and Nandalal Bose, should maintain their value because they have risen steadily and their supply is limited.

“The second quality works of the modernists, however, have seen a decline.” “You can cherry pick, but one shouldn’t buy with the thought that prices will rise significantly in the short run. One should buy what is likable and look at a longer holding period. It’s difficult to predict the direction that the March 2009 auctions of Sotheby’s and Christie’s will take. They are six months away. I’ll be surprised if there is sizable price rise,” Mr Kumar added.

“The NRI fraternity abroad was largely buying Indian art for investment. Only a few, probably, harbour the collector’s psyche. These collectors may take the opportunity to buy works at these depressed prices,” Mr Prakash Kejariwal, collector, art specialist and director of Chitrakoot, Kolkata’s oldest art gallery, said.

“Back in India, those who were investing their surplus share market funds in art will discontinue this pursuit for the time being. There are only a few collectors who don’t depend on the stock market to buy art. But this community is limited. So, the market is bound to shrink and prices could plateau.”

Mr Kejariwal also underscored that quality works of progressives and modernists like Ganesh Pyne, Bikash Bhattacharjee, Somnath Hore, Jogen Chowdhury and Rameshwar Broota are definite buys. In tandem are the old masters like Raja Ravi Verma. Buyers could also go for sculptures, which still enjoy price elasticity. “We must understand that art prices don’t collapse like share tags do. Art is not quoted in the markets as shares are,” Mr Kejariwal said.

Vikram Bachhawat, a well-known gallerist who heads Aakriti Art Gallery and is also the director of Emami Chisel Art, said he has been interacting with people in Mumbai and Delhi and most collectors have shown an interest in sourcing art.

“But, investors want to wait and watch. Some new investors are viewing art as an alternate avenue. At the moment, investors are focusing on auction-listed artists, who number around 300. At the same time, average artists will be glossed over in this market. If fund houses start ploughing money into art, the market, pegged at Rs 1,500-2,000 crore now, will expand at least three-fold.”

“The art market has been under pressure for the past eight to nine months, even before the stock markets crashed. Art works, both high and medium value, have slipped by 25-30%. Someone with liquidity can easily go for high quality modernist works with a long-term perspective. These pieces are available now at 35-40% below the market price a year ago. It’s the right time to buy if one chances upon a good piece. One should look at a timeframe of three to five years while making such an acquisition, though,” Abhijit Lath, collector and director at Akar Prakar Gallery, said.

Herve Perdriolle, Indian art consultant at leading French auction house Artcurial, hinted at some optimism: “Many factors should make the Indian market, particularly in these depressed stock market times, a favourite destination for investors and collectors. The Indian market is only about 0.1% of the international market. Compared with 45% of the market share held by the Americans, we can easily imagine a high-growth margin for the Indian art market.”