An English affair for Indian art

BUSINESS CLASS

London galleries show works of high-value Indian artists.

The city of London has played an important role in Indian contemporary art. Ever since F N Souza moved to London in the early 1950s, the city has inspired many artists to learn, work and live there.

Artists like Krishen Khanna, Akbar Padamsee and Jehangir Sabavala exhibited to limited audiences in London and other parts of Europe in the 1950s and the 1960s. Later, sculptors like Anish Kapoor found immense success, patronage and fame in London.

The Victoria and Albert Museum and the Tate were one of the first international institutions that began collecting Indian contemporary art in the 1970s.

Since then scores of artists and later even curators have been training at institutes such as Goldsmiths College and the Royal College of Art. London is also the headquarter to auction houses like Sotheby's and Christie's which held Indian contemporary art sales through the 1990s.

Unlike New York, London does not have a permanent gallery showing Indian art but there's a Souza show at Grosvenor Gallery and Saffronart auction at the Berkley Square Gallery in London.

F N Souza spent most part of the 50s in London and is known to have showcased his works alongside some of the more famous artists such as Francis Bacon and even Picasso.

At that time he showed at Gallery One and his works are today scattered among numerous unknown collectors across England. The Grosvenor Gallery bought the stock of Souza after Gallery One closed down and managed to hold on to the hundreds of works in its stockroom for almost four decades.

Only recently, especially, after Souza's death, has the artist's work become extremely valuable. Needless to say, a steady stream of collectors visit the gallery in search of his work.

The Grosvenor Gallery has since then started to organise exhibitions of Indian art. This month, it is showing Souza, S H Raza, Jogen Chowdhry and Avinash Chandra.

Not far from Grosvenor Gallery is the Berkley Square Gallery which plays host to Saffronart's next auction. This one will be dedicated to the high-value artists. The small auction, which is to be held online, has a few works each from artists such as J Swaminathan, M F Husain, S H Raza, F N Souza, Krishen Khanna and Ram Kumar, to name a few.

This is probably just a start for the Berkley Square Gallery which plans to hold more solo shows of Indian artists in the future.

As more exhibitions of Indian art take place in London, it will probably develop more interest with the mainstream art world, as it has, to some extent, in New York. This year will also see a small exhibition of Souza at the Tate gallery, followed by a major exhibition of the artist at the Grosvenor.

With Shibu Natesan's, living and working in London, show just over in Delhi and Dhruva Mistry 's exhibition at Sakshi in Mumbai, London's connection with the world of Indian art is once again gaining strength.