The Hindu Business Line : The larger canvas

At 89, Maqbool Fida Husain is a law unto himself. He's been in the eye of the storm, time and again. Such as the 1996 incident when right wing elements stormed Ahmedabad's Husain-Doshi Gufa, and burnt 16 of his 26 works. Or when he celebrated Bollywood superstar Madhuri Dixit on screen in Gaja Gamini and through his Chandramukhi painting series.

In mid-September, he hit headlines once again when the Mumbai-based Swarup Group of Industries announced its intent to buy 125 of the master artist's paintings for Rs 100 crore, approximately $21.5 million. It centre-staged the fact that, today, Husain and contemporary Indian art are inextricably linked in the public gaze.

The art market reeled with shock at the announcement. Dealers and art gallery owners dubbed the deal vulgar, spectacular, and every shade of opinion in between. Nobody could feign indifference. But does a deal like this signal the corporatisation of contemporary Indian art? Or the establishment of the individual as an art assembly line? What does it portend beyond its electrifying figures?

It's worth checking out the fine print of the Husain deal with Guru Swarup Srivastav, chairman of the business house with a Rs 500-crore annual turnover in shipping, iron ore and real estate. The artist has already received Rs 25 crore for 25 acrylic canvases, mainly 4 ft by 6 ft, including his recent series, Our Planet Called Earth. Husain has committed himself to completing the project within a year, and steering clear of the Planet... series for any other client. How will Husain use his windfall? Probably to experiment with more films, following the mixed reception of the Tabu-starring Meenaxi: A tale of three cities and Gaja Gamini.

Why did Srivastav and Husain strike this unusual accord? Husain has been quoted as saying: "Srivastav is not a collector, but we both share concerns about Indian art being undervalued. Why shouldn't it be treated on the same platform as western art?"

For the record, the highest price to date for an Indian painting is the Rs 2 crore that an NRI originally from Hyderabad paid for a Husain original in 2002. That's small change compared to the $40 million that Vincent Van Gogh's Sunflowers was auctioned for in 1987. Or the impossible sums mentioned as the worth of Picasso's magnificent Guernica.

Srivastav is unequivocal about his stance. He considers the Husains purely as an investment. At the formal announcement of the deal at New Delhi's Vadehra Art Gallery, he felt the 125 original paintings could be worth Rs 100 crore, given the right critical attention. Srivastav points out that when Citibank Dubai took 25 Husains to West Asia, they valued the work at Rs 25 crore. So, why should the Indian market fight shy of major figures?

How do other players in the Indian art scene react? Away from the art-as-commerce hubs of Mumbai and New Delhi, Siloo Daruwala of Bangalore's long-established Crimson the Art Resource, says, "I'm happy for Husain, but I don't know how it's going to reflect on the market commercially. Yes, this has made people sit up and think of investing in Indian art. But if other artists think of emulating Husain, I don't think that will be a good scenario... In reality, most private buyers here hesitate to buy anything priced higher than Rs 40,000."

A spokesman for an online art auction house, Saffronart.com, responds, "There's buoyancy in the art market at the moment. But I feel the real test will be at an auction. That's when buyers will dictate the prices."

Bangalore-based, internationally-recognised artists like Yusuf Arakkal and S.G. Vasudev react to the phenomenon with candour. "We knew this was going to happen," stresses Arakkal, gearing up for an all-artists' trip to Israel. "Swarup Srivastav has been collecting art for some time. I'm told he even has some of my paintings. But I don't know how much of a connoisseur he is, perhaps not in the same league as Kiran Mazumdar Shaw or Harsh Goenka. Realistically, what Srivastav has done is to cut Husain off from the market. Without a supply, both demand and prices will spiral upwards. But then, how many Indians have Rs 100 crore to spare for art?"

Veering away, Arakkal says, "We're not dealing with aesthetic or artistic terms here. Goenka once said he'd prefer to buy a Husain done 15 to 20 years ago for even Rs 20 lakh, but wouldn't pay Rs 1 lakh for a Husain done now." Vasudev is less emphatic. "Husain was responsible for gaining Indian contemporary art global recognition. I respect him for that," he says. "But a deal like this puts too much pressure on a painter. Is an artist a factory? As you grow older, you tend to eliminate much of what went into your earlier work. There's still a demand for the work I did 20 years ago, but I don't want to replicate that."

Artist Gurudas Shenoy, who has looked after Bangalore's Husain Sankalana gallery since 1990, makes no bones about his esteem for the charismatic, barefoot, prolific maestro. "Each artist works at his own pace. Some do ten paintings a year, some a hundred. Like Picasso, Husain works at lightning speed, of both mind and hand. He's untouched by controversy, able to concentrate on his work," he asserts. "I've known him to enjoy a dosa at the Mavalli Tiffin Rooms or Airlines Hotel, while talking intelligently about the hundred subjects he's read about or watched on TV. As he travels globally, he has an unimaginable ability to grasp facts and react."

As for the current controversy, Shenoy responds, "The prices of all Husain's contemporaries will shoot up now. It's good for younger artists of my generation, too. This will give collectors the courage to go to artists' studios and pick the best of their work. A serious edge to buying art, long overdue."

Arakkal, who regards Husain as a father figure because of his own bonding with the master's son, artist Shamshad Husain, provokes thought with another point, "In Van Gogh and Gauguin's time, works of numerous other artists were selling for huge sums, while these masters were never given their due. Where are those best-sellers now? We're all part of the larger canvas of our times. History will judge us differently."

Right on cue, Vasudev pitches in: "Even at 90, Picasso was painting for 16 hours a day. But he had opted out of the rat race. Free of commercial pressure, the work he did in those late years was fantastic. Otherwise, an artist could so easily stagnate."

As the canvas of controversy dries to a fine sheen, Husain remains a larger-than-life figure, still steeped in adulation. "He set certain standards for Indian contemporary art, pricing his paintings at Rs 1 lakh when the market prices hovered around Rs 25,000," notes Arakkal. "Today, his personality almost overshadows his work. That was a perfect marketing strategy."

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