The artist's muse

Contemporary artists speak about their collecting journeys and kind of works that resonate with them

From Bon thangkas and Chola bronzes to Sikh miniature paintings and rare etchings by masters such as Akbar Padamsee — leading contemporary artists talk to Avantika Bhuyan about their collecting journeys and the kind of works that resonate with them

Paresh Maity

For Paresh Maity, collecting art is a very personal process — one that stems from emotion, love and feeling. The process can’t be fettered by preconceived notions about a painting, sculpture or about the artist who has created these. “The work should uplift you aesthetically. That should be the first criteria for collecting a work, be it of any form or genre,” says the Delhi-based artist. In the last 25 years, he has collected works by artists he was close to. “It was a kind of mutual process — they loved my work and I loved theirs. It wasn’t just an exchange of art, but of emotion,” he says. For instance, Maity was quite close to F N Souza, during the Modern Master’s last stage of life. He cherishes the small drawings of his portrait that Souza created for him. “Jogen Chowdhury is a good friend and I have one of his works. Once, when I was visiting Paris, I had the urge to see S H Raza. I went to his studio and expressed a desire to possess one of his works,” says Maity. Raza was delighted to hear that. To him, it was a matter of joy to see one artist appreciate another artist’s work. He made two small art works for Maity. “My uncle, Sakti Burman, and I are also extremely fond of each other’s works. He has one of mine and I have works of his,” he says. I ask him about looking at artists from the grassroots, who might not be well-known, but maybe producing prolific work. “There are artists who work with clay, who might not be recognised but are doing wonderful work. I have works by unknown artists. Then there are also artefacts that I collected during trips to Rajasthan and central India — lot of art is hidden within them,” he says. 

Waswo X Waswo

The Waswo X Waswo Collection of Indian Printmaking began in 2003 as the brainchild of American expatriate Richard John Waswo, better known today as the artistic persona Waswo X Waswo. “One of my earliest memories was of an oil painting that hung in my grandmother’s home, that she had brought back from Germany before the war,” says Waswo, who learned to appreciate art as a child. As he grew older, he began to buy works for his home in the US. Towards the end of the 1990s, he started spending a majority of his time in India, as he felt that the art scene here was far more exciting than that in the US. He began to get involved — both as an artist and as a collector. At first, his buying habits were impulsive and unfocused. But he began to notice his affinity to works on paper, and etchings in particular.  “It was around 2003 and the Indian art market was booming. Paintings, even drawings, were getting priced beyond my reach. But no one seemed to be taking the fine art of printmaking seriously. I decided that I would create a collection that focused on Indian woodcuts, etchings, lithographs and screenprints,” says Waswo, who lives and works in Udaipur. The first serious print he bought was by Bhupen Khakhar. The collection became a consuming passion, as he garnered knowledge from books, curators, experts and other artists. Within the next 10 years he amassed over two hundred fine art prints, by a vast array of important Indian artists. He sought works by Nandalal Bose, Chittaprosad Bhattacharya, and later he started to collect Indian modernists such as Devyani Krishna, Zarina Hashmi and Krishna Reddy. “Even those artists, we don’t normally associate with printmaking had made some exquisite prints in their early years. One of the prize prints in my collection is a wondrous etching and aquatint by Akbar Padamsee,” he says. 

 

Anjolie Ela Menon

The leading contemporary artist has been collecting art for many years now and has works by masters such as Jamini Roy, M F Husain, F N Souza, Ram Kumar, K G Subramanyan, Arpita Singh and Francisco Toledo. Her collection also features work by Manjit Bawa and a lone K S Kulkarni, among others. “I also have one or two works by Kallat and Bose. All of these have been my friends or associates,” she says. Her collecting style is driven by two things: the first is to buy the work of young up and coming artists to encourage them, and the second is to collect art by colleagues, many of them as gifts or swaps. “I have, of late, stopped collecting due to lack of space and a diversion of funds to a trust that we run for the education of underprivileged kids,” says Menon. 

Arpana Caur

Women spend money on jewellery, but my mother, [veteran writer] Ajeet Cour, and I chose to spend our money on folk and tribal art,” says artist Arpana Caur, who is known for the iconic imagery in her paintings, much of which pays an ode to the folk narrative traditions. “Every time that I would sell a painting, I would buy folk art or a miniature painting,” she says. What started as an instinctive process 30 years ago has grown into a mammoth collection, with nearly 800 miniature paintings as part of it. The general public can view nearly 500 of these at the Academy of Fine Arts and Literature, located near the leafy environs of Siri Fort. This was established by her mother in 1975. “It is possibly the only private collection of miniature paintings open to public for free. Because the art is so well documented, the Google Cultural Institute chose to list the institution alongside public ones such as the National Gallery of Modern Art,” says Caur. Besides exquisite Pahari, Rajasthani and Gond works, her collection also features rare miniatures from the Punjab and Sikh schools of painting.

Ravikumar Kashi

This Bengaluru-based artist, whose work spans painting, sculpture, photography, installation and artist books, has been collecting tribal and folk art during his journeys across the country. “The kind of language that they developed over a period of time can be easily adapted to the new scenarios. These works have a fascinating rootedness,” says Kashi. Only recently, he picked up a Dokra sculpture from an art camp in Bhopal. Similarly, he bought a terracotta work from an artist based in Arakku valley, outside Visakhapatnam. The other way in which he has acquired artworks is through exchange or swap. “I give one work to my friend and he gives me one in returns. For instance, I had helped Jyoti Bhatt print an edition, so he gave me one of his works. I had taken K G Subramanyan to significant places around the city, so he very gracefully sent a watercolour with a note. That was very touching,” he says. 

Satish Gupta

Artist Satish Gupta’s studio is an oasis of tranquillity in bustling Gurgaon. As one climbs the stairs to his study, one can glimpse some rare Chola and Pala sculptures, exquisite thangkas and Ganesha miniatures, which form part of his collection. His collection is as eclectic as his own artistic style, which transcends sculpting, painting, ceramics, calligraphy, murals or poetry. Each work in his house has a story behind it . When he was younger, he started collecting miniature Ganeshas. Every time that Gupta would sell a work, he would head to the shops in Sunder Nagar and pick one up. “Then I started collecting bronzes from southern India. Chola bronzes have served as a great inspiration to me. I picked up two exceptional pieces — of Shiva and Parvati — from a Swiss collector, who was leaving the country and couldn’t take these along,” says Gupta. His collecting journey then veered him towards Himalayan art. One can see some exquisite examples of this genre in his study — there’s a stunning thangka, which is a Bön piece — the pre-Buddhist religion. “It is more animistic. The colours are more muted,” says Gupta, who also has a fascination for pens and seashells. He recalls a trip to Goa, when he came across a lapis lazuli shell in a shop. “The shell had a phenomenal price tag attached with it, but the owner said just take it. I refused as it wouldn’t have been fair. He told me that he was going for a major surgery in Germany. He said that if he came back, I could offer a work of mine in exchange. I went back the next year and thankfully he was there. I gave him a watercolour of mine. It is stories like these that make the works valuable,” says Gupta. Kalighat paintings and Gandhara art also form part of his collection. He shows me a sculpture of a varahi, the female form of the Lord Vishnu’s varaha avatar. “These are very rare,” he says. 

Rekha Rodwittiya

For many years, artist-couple Rekha Rodwittiya and Surendran Nair chose to have blank walls in their home, keeping their small but precious collection of art carefully packed away. “It had been mostly gifted to us by our artist friends,” says Rodwittiya. It is only in the last decade or so that they have put up artworks that hold a special personal significance to them. “We do not see them as precious because of their monetary value but love them for the memories they evoke in us, and the relationship that we have with the respective artist,” says the Vadodara-based artist. The collection features works by Raja Ravi Varma, K G Subramanyan, Gulammohammed Sheikh, Bhuphen Khakhar, Vivan Sundaram, Karl Antao, Kim Kyoung Ae, Sonatina Mendes and Ankush Safaya, to name a few. “For me, perhaps, my most beloved work is a black-and-white framed photograph that my son Mithun took as part of an exercise during his NID programme that I have in my studio,” she says. Not being conventional collectors, the couple believes that one’s environment impacts one the most, along with choices that constitute one’s personal politics. “Also as artists, we are trained to have an insightful aesthetic comprehension and are, therefore, expected to possess a more refined and culturally knowledgeable perception about the arts. However, at the end of the day, what matters most for me is that we must love the work that surrounds us,” says Rodwittiya.

B Manjunath Kamath

At his home in south Delhi, one can see an esoteric collection of leather shadow puppets from Karnataka, bhuta statues, old utensils, ritual objects, masks from Bhutan, Tibet, Odisha and Africa, miniature paintings, patachitra from Bengal and Odisha as well as terracotta sculptures. B Manjunath Kamath, who is known for visual vocabulary and storytelling techniques, has picked up these artefacts on his journeys around the world. “I am biased towards places with a rich heritage of arts and craft such as Cambodia, Bali, Bhutan and Africa. I am drawn to local hubs of craft and artisan villages as they provide one with an insight into the legacy and history of the place,” he says. More than just collecting objects of antiquity, what attracts him to an object is the artist’s work with all its perfection and flaws, its emotional resonance and the stories that it may unfold. “These are a testimony to the passage of time. In our rapidly changing environment, where our surroundings transform in a blink of an eye, I often attempt to preserve a part of today,” he says.