Industrialist Dilip De has always been quoted as saying — often at the risk of good-natured ribbing from friends and not a little rancour from his peer group — that it falls to the collector to extend dignity and value to artists, especially when they are struggling. “In the seventies, many of the top artists would travel by train or bus,” he said again on Monday evening, at a panel discussion in Mumbai organised by auction house Christie’s. “I would send my car and driver to fetch them home,” he said, at least part of that patronage aimed at wooing them into selling directly to him instead of being routed through a gallery.
Many collectors — especially Indian collectors — understand that only too well: Eliminate the gallery and you pretty much eliminate a sizeable outlay on commission, but De, to be fair, pointed out that he likes to buy his art only from artists he has come to know well. But instead of seeking concessions because of this, he likes to award artists with better value. “That is the only way to attract talent,” he said. For the record, and as examples, he said he paid Christie’s Rs 99,000 for a work by Laxman Shreshtha in 1987 when his paintings sold on average for Rs 20,000, and paid Sotheby’s Rs 1.6 lakh for a painting by Tyeb Mehta in 1989 at a time that artist's price was Rs 40,000 for a work.
This raises questions of financial clout and financial worth, whether one influences the other, whether art is possible only when there is prosperity, and the Catch-22 of which comes first. While we have seen the gains of a bullish art market in recent years, it would be foolhardy to imagine that art — or especially, as some believe, quality art — is the result only of prosperous markets.
Artists in India till a decade ago hardly had any prospects, despite whatever fame they enjoyed, and too many had to hold on to day jobs either as an alternative or till they had sufficient funds in the till to take the plunge into whole-time painting. Nor are instances of excellent art being nurtured in penurious times difficult to find — if there was Vincent van Gogh whose entire career was a struggle, back home Chittaprosad’s paintings and drawings of both partition as well as the Bengal famine about the miseries of the human condition are without parallel, and in the rosy context of nostalgia, one forgets that even the glamorous Amrita Sher-Gil lived mostly on borrowed funds and sold nothing of what she painted.
So while it may be true that art can be created in any circumstance — the struggling artist painting in the garret comes to mind — it does raise the question whether it has any staying power pared off sound financial worth. For without the collector’s purse at his disposal, the artist is forced to eke out a living, which is not the ideal environment in which to create quality art. Whether this patronage is individual (the private collector), fraternal (loosely including a thriving community of curators, galleries, auction houses and media) or extended by the state (museums, institutional purchases and supportive regulatory authorities) can matter little. Or as De said somewhat pithily, “Without collectors there would be no market.”
While ruinous times can still lead to the creation of excellent art, is the reverse also true: That good times for artists are bad times for art? That artists paint under pressure for gain, thereby sublimating their work? That financial wealth creates complacency? While we have seen this to some extent in recent times — especially among contemporary artists — it is important to remember that the association of wealth and art as an idea is still new to India, and therefore some artists who made the mistake are now suffering the downturn, but also using it to evolve greater aesthetics.
What is more important is that financial muscle allows artists greater room to experiment, to break from tradition, to have the resilience to try out newer, bolder ideas. Collectors are a breed who will not stake their money unless they are sure about returning their investment. “I buy art not to sell art,” said De, “I buy art to enjoy art.” But by publicly increasing their value (through high bids at auctions), he also increased their worth, and the worth of his collection. That’s what smart collectors do.