When it comes to collecting contemporary Indian art, Bengal art has a special place. First among its artists are the three Tagores: Rabindranath (1861-1941), Gagendranath (1867-1938) and Abanindranath (1871-1951). Rabindranath, of course, is more famous as the Nobel laureate poet and writer, but his foray into art successfully weaned Bengal artists away from revivalist art towards modernism. This break of his did a great deal to establish Indian contemporary art with its own originality. This is the basis of his works commanding a price as art investments and not just mementoes of a great man.

Gagendranath, however, with his works done around the period of World War I not only explored new forms of visual expression but gave us some of our best examples of radical art while at the same time evolving his own ?cubist? approach based on prismatic light and shade. Abanindranath evolved new approaches of handing form and colour as well as evolving free form sculpture. But his main significance is his search for an Indian nationalist art, despite its not being a fully successful venture.

Apart from the three Tagores whose works could be considered among the more prized investments of our times, two artists stand out clearly from this early period. One is Jamini Roy (1887-1972), who was the father of the peculiar blend of folk expression and modernist drawing that became the dominant trend in our contemporary art for decades. The other is Nandalal Bose (1882-1966) who fathered the art of our national movement, drawing on both folk and East Asian calligraphic art as his inspiration.

After him, we have a talented crop of artists from the early 20th century. They are Benode Bihari Mukherjee (1904-1980), Ram Kinkar Baij (1906-1980), Sailoz Mukherjee (1907-1960), Sudhir Khastgir (1907-1974), Gobardhan Ash (1906-1996) and Sunil Madhab Sen (1910-1979).

Structure: Oil on canvas by Somenath Maity

This first decade of the 20th century has given us some of the most powerful Indian expressionists who were influenced not only by European expressionism but also by Chinese, Japanese and our own folk art. These artists of the early 20th century have contributed some of the best works to our art tradition. They succeeded in bringing the earlier promise to fruition. That is why they make good investment. Their works, apart from Sailoz, Benode Behari and Ramkinkar, can still be bought at reasonable prices.

The next generation of artists, like Gopal Ghose (1913-1980), Somnath Hore (born 1921) Chitta Prasad (1915-1978), Paritosh Sen (born 1918), and Nirode Majumdar (1916-1981) reflect a greater concern with the sensitive portrayal of reality and a mastery over technique.

The generation that followed them, figuring artists like Ganesh Haloi (born 1936), Bipen Behari Goswami (born 1934), Shuvaprasanna Bhattacharya (born 1947), Bijon Choudhury (born 1931), Nikhil Biswas (1930-1966), carry forward the tradition of Bengal modernism which comes into its own with Sunil Das (born 1939) a rare artist whose capacity to innovate is as powerful as his drawing.

Bengal art, which started out with a self-conscious attempt to evolve nationalist art that side-stepped European influences altogether, finally reached modernity with a three-way dialogue of folk, calligraphy and European modernism with the independent spirit of Indian radicalism. This, in Bengal, took the form of an irreverent and radical expression which came into its own in the late 1960s.

Today, a number of younger artists like Eleena Banik, Debabrata De, Chittrovanu Majumdar, Somenath Maity and Paresh Maity are the best known. The important thing, however, is that Bengal art has shown a certain persistence of innovative and radical expression which has served it well over the years.

True, Mumbai artists have been more fashionable and Vadodara has a certain snob appeal. But the reputation of Bengal art for excellence has maintained itself. What is more, it is both good and affordable.

Art, while it gives at least three times better returns than real estate, also shares with it the quality of long-term investment. And while newspaper and society hype can raise prices of the works of certain artists temporarily, it fails to stand up to the test of identifying or creating a good investment.

That description can only be applied to the works of artists who have contributed to the development of major trends in contemporary art. Art investment ought never to be confused with fashions in art that are temporarily blown up by hype. It has a steady and solid quality. Any attempt to ignore that will result in unnecessary losses for the investor.