To understand what makes for investment in art, one has to make concrete assessments beyond the firmament of stars. Among these, one can count dead artists like Rabindranath Tagore, Jamini Roy and Gaganendranath Tagore. Among the living, one has MF Husain and Ganesh Pyne. Still Life with Bottle, an acrylic on paper by FN Souza […]
To understand what makes for investment in art, one has to make concrete assessments beyond the firmament of stars. Among these, one can count dead artists like Rabindranath Tagore, Jamini Roy and Gaganendranath Tagore. Among the living, one has MF Husain and Ganesh Pyne.
Still Life with Bottle, an acrylic on paper by FN Souza
Looking beyond them, however, is an important exercise that one should undertake. Close to Husain, we have two Bombay Group artists, FN Souza whose work is expressionist and figurative, and SH Raza whose work is abstract and symbolic.
Recently, in December 2002, 12 works of Souza came up for auction on the Internet with Saffronart. There were six drawings, five oils on canvas and one chemical on paper work.
The drawings sold at around Rs 63,000 each, while the canvases averaged out at Rs 3.6 lakh per work.
The highest price paid was for a fine head that was 18×24 inches that sold for Rs 5.85 lakh, which works out to Rs 1354.2 per square inch.
In May, some six months earlier, another Souza canvas fetched roughly Rs 2.62 lakh for a work that was 25×17 inches, working out to Rs 616.5 per square inch.
In December 2001, an oil on canvas that was 19×24 inches sold for Rs 84,600 only.
As these works were all sold from Saffronart online auctions at different times, I believe they can be treated as comparable.
So, from this perspective between December 2001 and December 2002, the price of Souza?s works rose from Rs 185.5 per square inch to Rs 1,354.2 per sq inch in a year, reflecting an over seven times rise in a year.
It is no surprise then that one of Delhi?s leading galleries, Vadhera?s, is exhibiting a tribute to him at the moment.
In the case of Raza, seven works came up for sale in the Saffronart auction. There was an old gouache on paper (19×25 inches) that sold at Rs 4.65 lakh.
There were two oils on board that were bid for Rs 2.15 lakh each, and three acrylics on canvas, with the small ones being bid for up to Rs 2.60 lakh and Rs 2.95 lakh, while a 48×24-inch painting of the black spot series that actually sold at no less than Rs 7.55 lakh. This works out to a price of Rs 655.38 per sq inch.
In December 2001, a gouache on paper (13×13 inches) sold at Rs 1.69 lakh, working out to little more than Rs 1,000 per square inch.
In a year the price of such a gouache had remained more or less the same at Rs 979 per sq inch. Considering that both artists are from the Bombay group, why the difference? What can we conclude from these figures?
First and foremost, we can conclude that both these artists are in the top bracket commanding prices above Rs 1,000 per square inch.
Secondly, that the sudden rise in price of the works of Souza could, perhaps, be explained by his death. When an artist dies the price of his or her works soars. This is because that artist will no longer produce more works.
Another feature may well be that for Indian contemporary art at least, the figurative still commands a better price than the abstract.
However, as we have seen earlier, VS Gaitonde?s prices have risen as sharply as those of any artist, figurative or non-figurative.
So while we came to the conclusion that the death of an artist does affect the price of his or her work, it does so only if the artist has already achieved a certain stature. An artist who has not achieved this stature is likely to be forgotten at death.
From this perspective, one can predict that the prices of the works of the centenarian BC Sanyal are bound to soar as well after his recent death.
Even so, certain facts must be registered in the mind of the buyer in the case of making an investment. First the Rs 1,000-plus price must reflect an artist?s genuine contribution to the development of art and not only his or her personal contacts and network.
Both Souza and Sanyal are worth investing in as Souza was among the founders of the Progressive Artists Group while Sanyal was one of the founder?s of Delhi?s Shilpi Chakra.
If Souza was expelled from the JJ School of Art in Mumbai for his part in the National Movement, Sanyal too had to leave the College of Art in Kolkata and then move on to Punjab where he made a bust of Lala Lajpat Rai for the Lahore Congress Session.
So a link, as an artist, with the anti-colonial movement seems also to count in making his or her work worth investing in.
Finally, where Souza drew on the radical artists from Europe, especially Picasso, for inspiration, Sanyal opened a window to the East, being influenced by Chinese landscapes while drawing on Matisse as inspiration for his figurative works.
Both are figurative, have founded new art groups, have had a link with the National Movement, and draw on sources colonial art frowned upon. This is a good basis for their art being a worthwhile investment.