Art camps were never known to have produced masterpieces. Their duration is usually short-too short for artists to work as they would really like to. Moreover, not every artist would like to work in a public space, where one can expect onlookers and the curious to stop and stare.

Therefore, the works produced could be a mere shadow of an artist's original vision.
Yet, camps are ideal places for artists to find out about each other and for exchanging ideas and comparing notes.

This is one of the reasons why Mumbai-based publishing house Popular Prakashan held a four-day are camp at ITC Sonar Bangle, beginning October 19. Publisher Harsha Bhatkal said though he loves art he did not know many artists. So, he has organized four campus over this year, some at exotic locales in Turkey and Sri Lanka.

"This is the precursor to publishing books on art. Thereby, one can find out what the reader wants. Had we published in isolation, it would not have been possible," said Bhatkal, who is in town. They have already brought out a beautifully-produced book with drawings and writing of Satish gupta. Another one, handwritten by Paritosh Sen, is in the pipeline.

The large exhibition space at the hotel was packed with artists and their canvases. Many of the better-known artists of Bengal participated. Senior ones, like Jogen Chodhury, Suhas Roy and Paritosh Sen, had decided to work at home and later handover their works to the organizers. Jayashree Chakravarty worked in the privacy of her hotel room. Dipali Bhattacharya said a sculpture is what she would give.

All the artists worked with acrylics on canvas. Although their works were not complete on Monday, one could get an impression of how their works would turn out to be.

Splintered bodies, like the victims of bomb blast, floated all over tapas konar's canvas. Sunil De's canvas, with a limited colour scheme, was dominated by circles and calligraphic flourishes.

Pradip Rakshit's canvas was contemplative by nature. He had used brushwork and a spray gun to produce the effect of a sheet of dark water. Aditya Basak's work was built around a large head. Ashok Bhownik produced asymbol of torture-a drawing of a trussed human form that he had painted over.

A liner female form was Samir Aich's contribution, albeit from an unusual angle. The only artist who made any pretense of using modern technology was Prashanta Shaw of Santiniketan. He had reproduced a scanned image of a male torso with paint and brush. The only artist outside Bengal was Subhash Awchat of Mumbai.

(Source the Telegraph Nov,22,05)

Thota Vaikuntam, the Hyderabad-based artist considered a legend in contemporary Indian art was here for his first solo show in the city he described as the cultural capital of the world. Known for his painting of ordinary women from Telangana region with their traditional clothes, jewellery, dark complexion and robust physiques,Vaikuntam had brought along a range of 30 acrylic on canvas paintings created over the past year especially for the London show. "London has been the cultural centre of the world for years and years. When I was told i would have a show here I Wanted to create some very special canvases and just by the reaction on people's faces it feels like I have succeeded." said the 63-year-old during the opening of the show at Air gallery in central London.

The paintings, priced between £1,000 and £10,000, were almost completely sold out on the opening night itself. Most of the buyers said they were struck by the bright and vibrant colours of his work "if you go to my village, you will see that the women like to wear such bright colours. The brighter the colours the brighter their hearts. It is that inner sense I try and capture with my brush," added the artist.

The exhibition was accompanied by the UK Launch of a book on the artist title Thota Vaikuntam-The Man and His Women. The book, conceived and edited by arts consultant Sushma Bahl, is the first Indian Masters' Series in London. It is also the fist of its kind on this much celebrated but hardly written about artist and attempts to tell the story of the man and his Telangana women, his struggles with life and encounters with destiny which have brought him to where he is today.

"Women have always played a very important role in my life, right from my mother. I feel women encompass the various facets of life with such ease- be it taking care of the house or helping in the fields. All I Know is to paint and this is my way of giving them the focus they deserve. The women folk of my village are very simple and hard-working and I try and reflect that with my painting," said the artist, a student of the college of fine Arts & Architecture in Hyderabad.

(Source:The Asian Age, Nov, 15, 05)

Indian art is not only making a splash, it is selling like hot cakes too. While M.F. Husain's The Last Supper was sold for Rs 9 crore, Tyeb Mehta's Mahisasura has fetched Rs 7 crore. But, this spurt has also generated a fair share of controversy. While Husain's painting was sold privately through the Internet, Mehta's work was sold in an auction. Now the question is, is selling paintings through the Internet a healthy trend?

Tyeb Mehta broke his previous record nearly two months back, when his acrylic on canvas, Mahisasura, came under the hammer. The bids crossed the $1 million mark - a first for a contemporary Indian painting. Finally, a private Indian collector from North America hammered the final bid for a record auction price of $1.58 million (Rs 7 crore). The maximum amount for which Tyeb Mehta's work had sold previously was for Rs 1.01 crore in the year 2005 (Acrylic on canvas, Kali, painted in 1997).

Just two weeks after Mehta's painting was sold for the record sum, Husain sold his The Last Supper for $2 million (Rs 9 crore) to a London-based NRI corporation. However, those in the art circle feel that the two can't be compared because The Last Supper was sold privately, and so the record goes to Tyeb Mehta.

The debate on the fate of the lesser-known Indian artists had begun as Christies' hammer went down for Tyeb Mehta at Rs 7 crore. After Husain's painting was bought on the Internet, the debate now is whether the trend would spark a shift from auction houses to the Internet - and whether that would be healthy. After the historic moment, Husain commented at his exhibition in Singapore, that selling on the Net means more to him than selling at an auction house, the latter being just a "buying and selling platform".

Younger people in the art circle believe that the option of selling on the Net is convenient. Dr. Alka Pande, a well-known art historian and curator, differs from her contemporaries on this account. With the prices "jumping up so high," Pande feels that the mega-bucks-for-art trend is only going to help artists, galleries and auction houses. "It is important to find out whether collectors who have the money to buy these paintings also have enough sense to evaluate the worth of the painting. If they are one of those who run after trends, the collecting scene might turn unhealthy soon," says Pande.

Artist Sanjay Bhattacharya is worried about the consequences of such huge sales. He feels that it is spoiling the opportunities for younger artists. "Such sales are all about the tag - the signature. People don't apply logic while judging a painting any more. The trend is killing young people who have just begun their career. Plus, no one even gets to know the real worth of a work. Even bad paintings can sell for good money," he rues.

According to Sanjay, the Net is an "additional way of selling art, reaches more people, more buyers directly".

Senior artist Gopi Gajwani is surprised with himself. Ever since his first solo show in the 1960s, he has consistently worked on abstracts. And his most recent one that opened at the Triveni Kala Sangam yesterday is no exception. With about 25 new works, all created in the past two-three years, Gajwani has yet again paid obeisance to the form of painting that gives him maximum pleasure the abstract. ``It's not that I've not tried other things But, when it comes to producing a body of works, the only vocabulary I enjoy is the abstract, ''He elaborates For the latest show, most of Gajwani's works are oil-on-canvas with a few in mixed media.

Gopi Gajwani

And what makes his new works different from the earlier ones? ``Every body of work that I create tells me instantly that it is different from what Idid a few years ago Anyone who has observed my works over the years would tell in just one look that so much has changed besides the signature.''
Gajwani was born in Pakistan and moved to India when he was five He graduated from the Delhi School of Art in 1959 and now that he stands on the other side of the easel, he just wishes that the younger lot wouldn't be ``so impatient.''

(Source : HT city, Oct. 19, 05)

It's Not Just The Market Art Mart Too is Booming

SIX blue-chip masters and two back-to-back auctions of contemporary Indian art are taking the Rs 500-crore Indian Art market a notch higher.

As Christie's auction gets underway at New York's Rockefeller Plaza early this morning, Sotheby's Indian show yesterday at York Avenue broke more than one record in Indian art sales. For the first time, works of six painters Francis Newton Souza,Maqbool Fida Husain, Syed Haider Raza, Tyeb Mehta, Vasudeo S Gaitounde and Ram Kumar-have crossed the Rs 1-crore barrier in a single event, pushing the total sales to a whopping $6.6 million or Rs 30 crore.

While the Christie's New York auction in March this year touched $3.7 million (Rs 16 crore), this time it has almost doubled at Rs 30-crore. Among the super six artists, Ram Kumar was voted as the overarching star as his 1970s untitled work got snapped up for Rs 1.74-crore, a record high for the abstract painter whose works in the secondary market are currently priced between Rs 30 lakh and Rs 60 lakh. Husain's Bodies Drift Between You and Me got sold for Rs 1.25 crore equaling the price fetched for Souza's Man With A Cross. This is the first time that a work of Souza, who mainly painted in samller canvases, crossed Rs 1-crore.

Meanwhile, Metha's Orange Nude got sold for Rs 1.20 crore even though it did not set any new price benchmark. Raza's Oasis was snapped up for Rs 1 crore while Gaitonde's abstract from 1962 sold for Rs 1.05 crore.

Apart from Ram Kumar, the biggest sales surprise has been Atul Dodiya whose painting The Mocking got snapped up for over Rs 50 lakh, 50 per cent above the high price estimate. Speaking on the phone from New York, Dadiba Pundole of Mumbai based Pundole Gallery, said, ``Dodiya's was the last lot in the auction. We did not expect it to do so well.''

Pundole was recently appointed as the offical consultant to Sotheby's for Indian contemporary art.
Of the total 170 lots that went under the hammer, Souza and Husain continue to have a dominant presence at the auction with nearly 14 and 13 works each, respectively. In an effort to broaden its representation of Indian artists this year, Sotheby's had several artists for the first time and have done well. They include Subodh Gupta (Rs 6.5 lakh, Fisherman), Jitish Kallat (Rs 8.5 lakh, A Dog's Life), Chintan Upadhyay (Rs 4 lakh, New Breed Hybrid) and Anjum Singh (Rs 2 lakh, The Pink Floor).

About five per cent of the total lot, however, did not find any takers. Works of artists such as Gogi Saroj Pal, Ved Nayar and Thota Vaikuntam went unsold.

Will Christie's be able to match Sotheby's record? Will Tyeb Mehta's Mahisura, whose reserve price has been set at Rs 2.7 crore, see a new high? ``We can't say anything now but we are hoping to get at least $6.5 million,'' says Arun Vadehra, Christe's consultant in India.

(Source : The Indian Express 22 Sept .05)

M F Husain's all over the media, Ganesh Pyne is a recluse. Husain c elebrates life, pyne is obsessed with death. Husain has mass appeal, Pyne is niche. Husain is modern, Pyne is traditional. But for the market that goes by the square inch, Pyne's works are just a valuable as Husain's. Georgina Maddox gets Pyne to talk about Husain and many other things on the eve of his first retrospective in Mumbai.


Given the choice, Ganesh Pyne would rather sit at his desk and work over his jewel-like paintings done in tempera and water colours. Which is why the reclusive artist still has people guessing if he will show up for his first ever retrospective in Mumbai.

A collection of 52 works ranging from the 1980s to 2000, taken from the collection of Inderjeet Banerjee and Sanjay Bagaria, this is a largely non-profit exhibition designed to expose the Mumbai public to classic Pyne. ``I look at it as their show since I would have personally edited out many of the works from the tail, who is often articulate about which works get shown and which don't.
The Kolkata-based 68 year old painter has often been touted as the M F Husain of the miniature style since his work, if valued per square inch. Is at par with the 89 year old living legend. Says Neville Tuli, director of the auction house Osian, ``It is really an unfair comparison since the works differ, not only in size and medium but in content and style. However, the market that goes by the square inch does indicate that Pyne is one of the most expensive artists,'' So while a 7-foot Husain would fetch Rs 30 lakh, a 4x4 Pyne would fetch 25 lakh. Husain's 100-crore deal with Guru Swarup Srivastava is, of course, not counted as reflective of the real market price of the maverick painter.
But the similarities between Pyne and Husain usually end at the auctioneer's catalogue, If the media-friendly M F Husain makes art that reaches out to the masses, the camera-shy Pyne has a niche elite market. While Husain's work celebrates life, Pyne is obsessed with death. Husain embraces the modern style of paintings with his wide brush strokes and large canvases, while Pyne has clung to the traditional approach of finely detailed small-format works.

And just for the record, the two artists wax eloquent about each other. After the 1997, HEART auction when Pyne's prices shot up to touch 8.5 lakh, Husain went on record to say, ``This artist is not just India's best but one of the world's greatest.'' Today, however, he's toend it down to a more demure, ``He is a fine, artist with a strong hold over tradition.''

On his part, Pyne believes that Husain is like an ambassador for Indian art. ``Not only has he done very well for him-self as one of India's pioneers, but he has made the world aware that contemporary Indian art is alive and kicking,'' says Pyne who could never jump on to the next flight to Paris at the drop of a hat. An act that has now become synonymous with Husain's style

Phantoms of the night
Born into a middle-class family in Kolkata, the young Pyne was always the quiet, creative kind with a deep interest in the spiritual. ``I was born in a peaceful and beautiful Kolkata,'' he recalls.
``Then came freedom and Partition; refugees from East Bengal flooded the city, and the Communist Party emerged as a strong presence.''

At the age of 10, pyne experienced the horrors of Partition, followed by the violence to the Naxalite movement and the subsequent poverty and famine. All of which left a deep scar. ``I created a creature who became a symbol of violence, drawn from Ghatotkach of the Mahabharat,'' he says of the generic leitmotif in many of his works. It is this dark period in Pyne's oeuvre that is valued above all his other work, even though the hair-raising phantoms of his smoky dream world were not easy to sell at first. Today, however, many collectors, from the late Chester and Davida Herwitz and kito and Jane de Boer to Mukund and Neerja Lath pride their collection of Pynes over their Husains.

(Source : The Times of India, April 17, 05)