While most artists love to celebrate the intimacy of working on paper,collectors have traditionally been a bit intimidated by its frailty. Consequently,most galleries dont exhibit paper art works frequently. Besides,the demand among buyers too has been infrequent. That seems to be changing now with many artists opting to work on archival paper. People have a very wrong notion that a paper work doesnt last. In fact,paper has been existing for the last 1,000 years,whereas canvas is a relatively new medium that has been around since the last 200 years. Artists are also responsible for this hierarchy. Since they charge more for canvas,many have have shifted from paper to canvas to make more money. Probably only artists like Paresh Maity and Anju Dodiya never made this distinction, says Siddhartha Tagore,owner of the gallery Art Konsult,who has a large personal collection of paper works that he has been collecting for the last two decades. Two ongoing exhibitions in New Delhi are now focusing on paper works. The first,titled the Medium Speaks Back at Gallery Art Konsult,has rare works by the New Bengal School stalwarts like Rabindranath Tagore and Ganganendranath Tagore,Ram Kinker Baij and Somnath Hore,Nandalal Bose and Hemendranath Majumdar of the the per-Independence era. Vadehra Art Gallery is hosting an exhibition titled Paper Trail of works by artists from the Progressive Artists Group like FN Souza and Ram Kumar,to the next generation of artists like Bhupen Khakhar,Rameshwar Broota,Arpita and Paramjit Singh. Jogen Chowdhury and Ganesh Pyne are the third generation featured in this show. The third exhibition is a solo show of up and coming artist Uma Shankar Pathak at gallery Art Alive this August. Several senior artists too are of the opinion that paper art works are on their way to being revived. Rameshwar Broota believes that with changing times and the arrival of archival paper it has become possible to increase the life of a paper work up to 150 years. The photographs that I am showing are museum quality with special inks. People do prefer a work they can grow old with it,which is justifiable since they are spending a lot of money on it. But now even the framing is done on acid-free mounts,so a paper work is just as resilient, says the artist,who has recently turned to photographs. Encouraged by the arrival of international quality paper on the Indian scene,many contemporary artists,like Riyas Komu,are exploring working with paper. His portraits of footballers are done on archival paper,while Gallery Ensign,which launched in the Capital this May,specialises in paper art and encourages the concept of affordable art. Their opening exhibition,The Living Insignia,featured works on paper by 21 artist,and had a price range beginning at Rs 15,000. Artist s,like Jagdish Chinthala from Hyderabad have gone a step further to experiment with paper sculpture,as has Mumbai-based Baptist Coelho. The growing demand for paper works is also because of the enhanced methods of preservation. One method of preserving art work that are not made on acid-free paper is to cover it with a protective melted PVC sheet,while more basic approaches include framing all the paper works and never hanging them in direct sunlight. As young collectors,my wife and I began our collection with only paper works since they are more affordable. Later,I continued to buy quite a few paper works because some of the major watercolours and gouache works of an artist like Anandajit Ray are done mainly on paper, says Rahul Baswani. Dinesh Vazirani director of saffronart.com,an art portal,says that there is a huge mid-market range of people willing to buy paper works. With the number of canvases available of the coveted artists shrinking in the market,people are turning to buying paper works, he confirms.
