Sold on serigraphs

Indian buyers are finding serigraphs increasingly acceptable as works of art in their own right.

Viraj Naik, a young Goan painter who's fast making a name for himself as an upcoming star on the Indian art horizon, had a solo exhibition last month at the Gallery Nvya in the capital. There were around 35 works, mixed media on paper, depicting his typical phantasmagoric figures "" part man, part beast, part bird.

Along with the paintings, the gallery also released a portofolio of six serigraphs of the artist's works, in a limited edition of 50 prints. At Rs 20,000 for the full set, they were not exactly cheap, but definitely less expensive than the Rs 65,000 (on an average) that Naik's works commanded.

The market for serigraphs in India has been growing over the last few years but until now, it was largely the known names like Jogen Choudhury, M F Husain, S H Raza and Jehangir Sabavala whose prints commanded a ready market. And the reason for that was obvious enough "" these artists had been priced out for all but the most filthy rich of art-lovers, and anyway, their iconic works were hardly seen. As Hari

Iyer, a collector, says, "I can have something signed by Raza on the wall for as little as Rs 20,000."

But a relative newcomer like Naik coming up with serigraphs is a sign of Indian buyers being willing to regard serigraphs as works of art in their own right, says Tripat S Kalra, director, Gallery Nvya. Look how well Naik's serigraphs were received. "They were immediately snapped up. We have only 15-20 left," she says.

What are serigraphs, and why are they more valuable than photographs, posters and other photo-mechanical reproductions? Serigraphs (prints made through the silk-screen printing process) are recognised the world over as multiple original prints since their production usually involves the active collaboration of the artist in the colour separation, the choice of paper and so on.

For example, Rameshwar Broota uses the same colour-scraping technique in his prints that he does in his paintings. They are made in limited editions (the stencils and plates are destroyed or marked out subsequently), with the artist numbering and signing each print, and have a thriving market in secondary sales and auctions.

Much of the new-found acceptability of serigraphs in recent years is the result of the activities of a few studios and galleries that have been collaborating actively with artists to put up high-visibility exhibitions.

The first such would probably be M F Husain's 1998 show, "Yeh Kaun Sa Mod Hai Umr Ka", of 24 paintings from his Madhuri-Maqbool series, in collaboration with Archer Art Gallery in Ahmedabad, which travelled to all the major Indian cities and also New York.

Then there is Mumbai's The Serigraph Studio, a fine-art publishing firm launched in 2003, which exhinited 18 serigraphs by Jehangir Sabavala in April this year. Delhi's Threshold Gallery put up a show, last month, of serigraphs of seminal works of Rameshwar Broota, Jogen Chou-dhury and Prabhakar Kolte.

There's more coming up. Lavesh Jagasia of The Serigraph Studio is also putting together a portfolio of works by contemporary Indian artists for a group show that he'll show at galleries in Korea, Singapore.

"Through this medium, I can show these works in these countries, since the originals are not easy to come by." South-east Asia is also a focus of Archer's Relia who will take to China and Japan next year serigraphs of Husain's horses and Mother Teresa series.

Says Kamal Rustomjee, an art dealer, who's interested in serigraphs and has acquired many for art funds and business houses, "The momentum is gathering."

The Serigraph Studio's Sabavala portfolio came up for auction at the Bonham's-Tehelka auction a couple of months ago and went for £32,000 (approximately Rs 26 lakh). Only in April, the entire set could be bought from the gallery at Rs 9.9 lakh-19.8 lakh. This is a rare instance of an

Indian contemporary art serigraph coming up at an auction, but Relia remembers two M F Husain serigraphs from his Jaisalmer series, which he launched in 2003 for Rs 25,000 each, going at Bonham's again in April 2006 for £1800 and £1900 (around Rs 1.5 lakh).

In the primary market too, prices have gone up. The Serigraph Studio's launch prices of Jogen Choudhury and S H Raza was Rs 18,000 and Rs 12,000 respectively. For the latest Sabavala show, the prices started at Rs 45,000.

Following international practice, Jagasia follows a pricing policy whereby prices rise at pre-determined intervals, based on how many prints are left.

For instance, the first batch of 25 is sold for Rs 45,000, the next batch at Rs 60,000 and the remaining at Rs 90,000.

"Earlier," says Jagasia, "prices started at Rs 12,000-18,000 and ended up at the same Rs 90,000, because the batches were smaller at 10 prints or so. But I found there was a lot of speculative activity going on, so we decided to increase the batch sizes." Archer's latest Raza prints cost anywhere between Rs 80,000 and Rs 2.5 lakh.

Clearly, if you haven't grabbed your Raza serigraph yet, soon these too will be too expensive to lay your hands on.