It was the dawn of the last decade of the millennium. Art collecting was just about becoming fashionable even though awareness was fairly limited.
The Illustrated Weekly carried art market articles every fortnight pitching artists as stocks.
Few galleries, fewer books and very few collectors ensured that the market was highly illiquid. But this turned out to be a blessing in disguise for a select group of eloquent, media-savvy artists who ruled the roost.
Thanks to scarcity of art dealers, artists became their own dealers and used a gullible media to make themselves collectable. Courting moneyed diplomats, hectic socialising, and PR contacts became vehicles for image enhancement and desirability.
The more serious artists such as V S Gaitonde, Tyeb Mehta, K G Subramanyan, Bhupen Khakhar, Arpita Singh and Rameshwar Broota were completely ignored by the
