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Journalism of Courage
FEW OUTSIDE THE ART CIRCLES know thatKito deBoer,the49-year-oldmanag-ing director of McKinsey & Company, Middle East, is one of the world’s biggest col-lectors of Indian art.The body of 800 works he and wife Jane amassed through the ’90s in-clude some of the largest collections of artists like Vasudeo Gaitonde, Ganesh Pyne and RameshwarBroota.deBoer alsohasaround20 defining works of Francis Newton Souza and a host of important works of the Bengal school. A reclusive collector who started buying much before the art razzmatazz caught on, he regularly attends auctions in India, but man-ages to avoid the media glare.
We are seated outsideThe Imperial Hotel in Delhi and beyond its green lawns, the evening traffic is ceaselessly buzzing on Janpath. In white shirt and beige linen pants, de Boer looks as cool as the Prussian blue tiled pillars behind him. Just the previous evening, he’s purchased a set of 25 black-and-white stills of Mughal-e Azam at an Osian auction. At Rs 11.5 lakh, the bid is the highest ever made for an In-dian film memorabilia. ‘‘Many people said I was mad to pay that kind of price,’’ he says. A lot of people also thought him mad when he, a Dutchman raised in the UK, jumped at the of-fer to come to India with his wife and two chil- dren. The year was 1992, and his task was to start McKinsey India’s operation from scratch.
However, in the next seven years, the de Boers also bought art. ‘‘We loved European art, but couldn’t afford them. Indian art became our passion and lifestyle.’’
In 1997, when Osian held its first curated auction, the couple paid Rs 4 lakh for a small tempera by Pyne, setting a new price bench-mark for the artist. At a Mumbai auction last year, de Boer paid Rs 95 lakh for a red abstract by Gaitonde. A collector who trusts his in-stincts more than reasons for investment, he also paid around Rs 80 lakh for a painting of R.C. Bagchi in March. That, when the artist’s price has rarely ever crossed Rs 2 lakh. But while the standing of Indian art is soaring in the international market, de Boer, who was in-strumental in convincing Christie’s to hold its first Indian art auction in Dubai this year, says India does not understand the value of its her-itage.
‘‘It’satravesty that India has undervalued its brilliant culture, much like it values foreign talent more than the ones in IITs and IIMs.’’ He feels even Indian corporate tycoons are not doing enough to build public institutions.
“The brilliance of Indian culture is not understood in India. I weepon the side because it has such an importan the ritage”‘‘The brilliance of its culture is not understood in India. I weep on the side because it has such an important heritage.’’ Meanwhile, are esca-lating artpricesdisturbing him?It’sanuisance, he agrees. ‘‘We can’t always collect what we want.’’ At the Dubai auction, he lost his bid for Rameshwar Broota’s untitled work because a competitor outbid him. Similarly, at the Sotheby’sauctionin2004, helostSouza’sMystic Repastwhen a buyer bid $153,600.
‘‘Since we are not into trading, quality mat-ters more than quantity to us,’’ he says. This partly explains why he’s thrilled to own a part of India’s cinematic history.‘‘Mughal-e-Azam is as iconic as GoneWith theWind. It’s India’s her-itage. ’’ A heritage, he would say, that we are perhaps yet to appreciate.
The Pioneer
For nearly three decades, Fukuoka Masanori succeeded in being a silent collector of Indian art. But in Septem-ber 2002, when the Japanese millionaire paid Rs 1.5 crore for Tyeb Mehta’s Celebration, at a Christie’s auction in New York, there was no way to escape the limelight. It was the first time that an Indian painting had crossed the Rs 1-crore mark. Masanori, a salmon ex-porter, firstcameto Indiaonasoul-searching trip after reading Tagore’s Gitanjali. Once here, he discovered Indian art. Today, he has over 4,000 paintings, sculptures and installa- tion artpieces.Hehas thelargestcollectionof Jogen Chowdhury and Tyeb Mehta, and has been actively buying their works to complete the sequence of their artistic evolution. Last year, he collaborated with Chowdhury on a book called Enigmatic Visions. In 1991, Masanori set up the Glenbarra Art Museum in Himeji, Japan, which regularly sponsors Indian artists. But things have changed.
When he visited India recently, he rued that he can’t afford to buy anymore. ‘‘When I started collecting, there was so much unsold work that I used to go to the gallery store- roomstochoose. Iusedtowear abandonmy forehead tokeepthesweat fromfallingonthe canvas.Today, it’s a different story.’’
