CANVAS CHAMPIONS

8220;When I started out, everyone labeled me as a bored, rich, housewife who was opening a gallery because she had nothing else to do,8221; says Renu Modi, as she sits in a room full of artwork in her MF Husain-designed home in Delhi. The artist had convinced Modi to open Gallery Espace in 1989. 8220;I had some works of art, but till then it had never occurred to me to set up a gallery or pursue a profession related to art. I agreed to open the gallery because Husain was there to help me out,8221; says Modi.

After months of searching, she finally zeroed in on a boardroom at her husband8217;s office in New Friends Colony and converted it into a gallery. The opening show featured Husain8217;s autobiographical series. 8220;The space was just large enough to fit 22 watercolours,8221; says the 51-year-old. She worked for four years to establish her gallery, with help from other artists like Manjit Bawa and Ram Kumar. She remembers exhibitions where nothing sold. Spending a lakh on promoting a show never guaranteed returns. Even a name like Subodh Gupta did not come with the price tag it does today. The breakthrough came in 1994, when she showcased Drawing 8217;94, her first curated show, put together by critic and poet Prayag Shukla. 8220;The days of struggle are relatively over now,8221; she says. Gradually Espace moved out of the boardroom; it is now a three-storied gallery.

Peter Nagy was a well-known artist in New York in the 1980s. He first visited India in 1990, two years after he shut his gallery Nature Morte co-founded with Alan Belcher in New York8217;s East Village in 1982 just before a crash in the US art market. In 1992, he moved to India, shacking up at a rented apartment in Noida. In over a decade, his gallery, Nature Morte, moved from a rented area at the India Habitat Centre 1997 to a 3,000 sq ft space in upscale Neeti Bagh. 8220;It8217;s all destiny,8221; says Nagy, as he describes his journey from New York to New Delhi and the rapid growth of the Indian art industry that followed.

8220;India appealed to me. The art scene in the country was buzzing. There were several artists like Subodh Gupta, Anita Dube, Vivan Sundaram who were doing interesting stuff and I wanted to work with them,8221; says 48-year-old Nagy, who began his career in India by writing articles on contemporary Indian art in magazines. Having run a gallery in New York gave Nagy the edge. But he schooled himself through visits to Lalit Kala Akademi, private galleries and artist residencies in Baroda and Ahmedabad.

8220;The first time I showed Subodh, none of the works found buyers and now there is a queue of collectors waiting to buy his art,8221; he says. While his penchant for radical artists earned him the label 8216;weird8217;, his taste for the unusual has paid off.
Shireen Gandhy is credited with bringing in exhibitions of Atul Dodiya, Kallat, Bharati Kher and Bhupen Khakhar before they found recognition. She took over from father Kekoo and mother Khorshed who established Chemould, the historical little gallery that began in 1963. Chemould was known for the Moderns but Shireen brought in the Contemporaries and had the vision that their art would take them places. Of the current boom, she says, 8220;The way the Indian art market is poised it seems it will only go up and the slumps have been small and temporary8212;every auction price seems to better the last one,8221; says Gandhy. But she fears that some contemporary artists have outpriced themselves.

Arun Vadehra is another important link. Having established himself as a name to reckon with in the home furnishing business, Vadehra ventured into art in 1987. 8220;I approached Christie8217;s to organise an auction of Indian art in the early 8217;90s and it took me five years to convince them, before Christie8217;s auction of Indian paintings in London in 1995.8221;
Indian art was valued at 300,000 then, nothing compared to the world art market of 3 billion. Vadhera, however, points out that the art boom has its limitations. 8220;It8217;s thriving on a handful artists, not more than 60 or 70 in number. The serious collectors aren8217;t more than 200.8221;

The picture would not be complete without quoting the success story of Dinesh and Minal Vazirani, who launched the online portal for art, saffronart.com in 2001. There was skepticism that something as tangible and visual as art could sell online but saffronart established itself as the only successful Internet art site in India. 8220;On our website, we get about 10 million hits a month, which is quite staggering. There is a lot of momentum with Indian art today,8221; says Vazirani. He believes that the respect generated by the pricing is here to stay. 8220;It8217;s not a bubble that will burst. Art has always been one of the highest priced and most exclusive item that society craves.8221;