Art collectors cast net far & wide

KOLKATA: The Indian art market is seeing an ever-expanding collector base. Based on a rough estimate, the number of collectors has increased by about 35% over the past one year. This new breed of collectors is acquiring various genres and categories of art. At the same time, together with mega art hubs in India like Mumbai and Delhi, markets like Kolkata, Bangalore, Chennai and Pune are showing a burgeoning population of collectors.

“The collector base has increased because of a growing economy, healthy returns from investment in art and a thirst for creativity among buyers. Their understanding of art has been boosted through interaction with artists, visits to exhibits in galleries, reading through catalogues and books and participating in auctions,” an art market source told ET.

According to the source, art collector groups are also cropping up on the Internet. “If you surf the Net, one will come across many art blogs and groups emerging. A prominent Net-based art club is Yahoo’s Contemporary Art India Group. All these developments underline the deepening interest in Indian contemporary art,” the source said.

The ongoing correction in the art market, the source observed, has had virtually no impact on the collector base. It may have affected short-term investors only who go for quick gains. Collectors generally have not been hit because they don’t collect for resale in a short period. “They only sell when they are upgrading their collection,” the source said.

With the spread of collectors getting diverse, different genres and categories of art are being picked up by collectors. They could be buying art based on a certain medium or period or acquiring particular artists. Offbeat art is also being purchased. Some of them, for instance, are known to have bought painted wooden toys created by MF Husain or designer jewellery conceived by the same master artist.

Collectors have also bought ‘signature canvases’ turned out by artists. ‘Signature canvases’ are ones where a clutch of well-known artists bring off a group small-sized works on a large canvas and sign individually on their respective paintings. Biggish installation works which normally filled public spaces are also being purchased of late by collectors. This was unheard of earlier.

A few collectors are learnt to have acquired large spaces to display and preserve installation works. Collectors are also going for experimental works. A sculpture by Subodh Gupta made of cowdung, for example, was also bought by a collector. This would have probably been impossible a few years back. This is a spinoff of the growth of a variegated range of collectors.