The talented Anjolie Ela Menon survived bazaar fluctuations and trends to emerge as a collectible heavyweight, but her works continue to be scarce.
Galleries may deny it, as will Anjolie Ela Menon herself, but there’s merit in what some collectors say, that despite the prodigious volume of work she has created, there’s less of her work in the market than you might logically expect. For the 70-year-old who has been painting for 55 of those years, Menon’s work isn’t easy to come by, and there are three reasons for it.
The first is that Menon controls her own market. The articulate artist has chosen not to flood the galleries with her works, feeding them just enough to keep the appetite whetted, but not surrendering to a feast that could cause a loss of desire for more. Not that there’s much fear of that. Having survived several ups and downs in market trends, the romantic, figurative artist whose work has often being accused of being too decorative, is in no fear of losing her market cap. Her constituency of collectors and viewers will simply not let her surrender her aesthetic niche.
This leads to the other reason for their paucity: Menon’s works are hardly ever in the secondary market, despite her long innings as an artist. Most of her peers have made their fortunes and careers at auctions where Menon has had only a few outings. This is not because there are no or few takers for her paintings, but because most collectors are loath to part with her works. Accusations of prettiness aside, Menon’s works have a rare quality of adaptability and longevity. Her oil on masonite paintings have a glaze-like surface, colours that are cheerful even when the subject is melancholic, and do not intrude or cause offence in any space. They belong as much to the Indian as the Western world, combining elements of French, Italian and Greek (mostly fresco) art with her own unique, somewhat lonely world view.
And yet, recognisability of her works is high even among non-collectors — chiefly on account of her technique, but also for the unseeing, unseen eyes of the figures and portraits she makes. Never does a painted figure engage with a viewer, looking away, or down, sometimes eyeless, often with eyes closed. It is this and a sense, somehow, of loss, that holds the viewer’s interest. What secrets lie behind that despondence? Why is there also a sense, almost, of serenity? Is it possible to be both sad and tranquil at the same time?
Menon’s has been a peripatetic life, first as the child of an army father, then as a student of the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris, followed by time spent backpacking across Europe and West Asia during which she imbibed the art traditions of Western civilisation not just from its museums, but discovered in churches and convents, in villages and amidst ruins. Her marriage to a navy officer meant postings in England, Germany and Russia — whether that, or Goa, is responsible for her series on Christian icons is unclear, for Menon combined disparate elements, subjects and materials with consummate, unaffected skill. She painted in often trying circumstances, in lonely places, and often cut off from family and in near-penurious circumstances, not because the family lacked income but because foreign exchange was difficult to come by. This is the third reason for the shortage of her works — exhibitions in different parts of the world meant her paintings are scattered around the globe, and many buyers may have no knowledge of the increase in their value.
Cut off from the major trends of the market in the metros, she was able to evolve her own idiom and style, and bucked convention to become known as a market leader rather than a market follower. Like Amrita Sher-Gil, she painted nudes, which today command the market among serious collectors, though among another segment of her collectors it is her Brahmin priests and novitiates who dominate. Some of her most sublime work has to do with Christianity, but Menon never shied away from experimentation — glazed Chinhat pottery, Murano glassware, found objects painted in kitsch style, old doors and windows used as frames for her paintings, painted pendants set with gemstones and worn as jewellery — but even in these forays Menon chose to limit herself to a few numbers, so that each collection ended up being more talked about than owned by the glitterati.
In the last decade, Menon’s prices have gone up six or seven times, which is not huge by the dramatic standards of some of her contemporaries. Her auction record of Rs 67 lakh is hardly steep (and in recent years, tiny works have been offered for as little as a couple of lakhs), but here’s the catch: gallery prices for Menon are not low by auction standard estimates. The reason for that, of course, is her paucity in the secondary market. Since second-generation inheritors seem as unwilling as the original owners to flog her works, what can be said is that, at best, her prices are notional. If you hold out for more, chances are, you’ll get what you ask for…as long as you have the staying power.
These views are personal and do not reflect those of the organisation with which the writer is associated.
