Shelf Portraits

Timeless Art Bookstore: Raavi Sabharwal’s Timeless Art Bookstore in Kotla Mubarakpur has a wonderfully idiosyncratic air about it,with a wide bed,rocking chairs and a Harley-Davidson placed right at the centre,with innumerable books stacked around them. “The interiors are meant to be comforting,for people to spend hours reading in the store,” says Sabharwal,who previously owned an outlet at South Extension and ran the Times Book Gallery at Khan Market from 1984 to 1994. The five-month-old bookstore has plenty of titles by well known art publishers like Taschen,Antique Collector’s Club and Prestel,for whom Sabharwal is a South Asia distributor. He also travels to international bookfairs to shortlist titles. “Readers are well-travelled and well-informed,so the library needs to be updated,” he says.

Vadehra Bookstore: The bookstore came about when Parul Vadehra realised that the people who frequented her gallery at Okhla to look at the artwork were equally curious about stories about art. Her store at Defence Colony caters to this curiosity. There is a section on International Art where you spot EH Gombrich’s The Story of Art; the Indian Monographs has books on Tyeb Mehta,Ram Kumar and A Ramachandran,while another rack has auction catalogues. “The key is to provide basic as well as advanced books,” says Vadehra.

The Steidlville: If you are a fan of the iconic Steidl books,this is the place to be. At The Steidlville in Photoink that opened in August,the interiors are minimalistic,enlivened only by the collection of over 70 Steidl titles placed in a corner shelf . The collection ranges from Robert Frank’s collection The Americans to Richard Avedon’s Portraits of Power and Sent a Letter by Dayanita Singh.

But,like artwork,reading about it does not come cheap. The most expensive book at Vadehra is The Art of India by Calambur Sivaramamurti that is priced at Rs 25,000; at CMYK Later Chinese Painting and Calligraphy: 1800-1950 comes for Rs 32,000. To encourage sales,CMYK is considering the option of allowing payment in instalments,Steidlville bookstore at Photoink offers up to 20 per cent discount and Vadehra gives 15 per cent discount to students and art collectors. Additional initiatives,meanwhile,are also taken to pull the crowd in. If Photoink held a month-long exhibition to celebrate the opening of the Steidlville bookstore in August,Vadehra organises book readings and discussions with artists. At CMYK,movies will be screened on the projection wall and author recommendations will be pasted on the wall each month. “These elements enhance the experience of visiting the bookstore,” says Kapoor,adding that in the process,the written word is promoted.

Contact:
* CMYK,Meher Chand Market,Behind IHC. Phone: 24641881
* Timeless Art Bookstore,Kotla Mubarakpur. Phone: 9811791246
* Vadehra Bookstore,Defence Colony. Phone: 46594456
* The Steidlville Bookstore,Jhandewalan. Phone: 28755940