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SO you have got a new flat and would like to hang the painting of M. F. Hussain or Anjolie Ela Menon on the drawing room walls to impress your guests? With these maestro’s works costing in crores of rupees, unless you are a Mittal or Mallya, the chances are not much for you to fulfil your desire. But do not lose heart. Since the year 2000, serigraphs of paintings by famous Indian artists are available for a fraction of the price of originals; usually five per cent of the cost of the master painting and you can take your pick from them. So what if S. H. Raza’s Nidhi comes at a mind-boggling Rs 60-70 lakh? You can now hang a serigraph or "multiple original" of it on your wall for less than a lakh. The most important factor is that these serigraphs are not second or third grade prints of the original. They are exclusive by themselves and due to an arrangement between the serigraph studios and the artists, the same painting will not be used a second time and the original serigraph prints will appreciate in value, just like an original does. Let us first examine as to what is a serigraph. A serigraph is a fine art print, more commonly known as ‘artist’s print’. It is produced using the screen-printing method as opposed to the photomechanical method, in which the prints are mere art posters. They are also commonly known as silk-screening prints. Serigraphy is a technique based on stenciling, for creating prints by hand. Separate hand-cut stencils for each colour of the original illustration are made. Ink or paint is carefully brushed through a fine fabric screen, portions of which have been masked for impermeability. The stencil is transferred to a mesh screen—one for each colour—and the paper is hand-fed through the press as many times as there are colours, creating a richly textured final print that captures the vibrancy of the original painting. So, a serigraph is actually a copy of an original painting and is considered as "multiple original" works of art, and being a multiple of the ‘original’ work, the prices of serigraphs differ in the market. Since they are all handmade—each colour is applied layer by layer by hand—and thus have more collectible value and may vary from each other slightly. But this variation is accepted positively as it makes each serigraph unique. Serigraphs are a new dimension to Indian art as "multiple original" works of art. There cannot be any fake serigraphs as by way of a foreign new-age distribution method, the artist hands over the original to a serigraph studio, with a certificate of authenticity and a serigraph number. Most of the serigraphs are printed in the UK and Europe on archival quality paper with ink that is guaranteed to last at least 100 years and the limited editions (125 prints each) are supervised and signed by the artists themselves. This is a pioneering venture in India. After the editions become rarer, the prices become dearer. All 125 prints, starting at a minimum of Rs 18,000 depending on the fame of the artists and going up to one lakh each in a matter of months, are usually sold out a day after they come to the market. As one art collector says, "Within Rs 1 lakh, one can purchase an original serigraph of any of the big artists of the country. You can have serigraphs of the big artists like S.H. Raza, Paritosh Sen, Jogen Chowdhury, Sakti Burman, Ram Kumar and 30 others. There are usually 125 editions (for the layman you can call them prints) of each of these serigraphs and the first print costs Rs 18,000. A good serigraph should have every edition signed and dated by the artist and it should also have the painting’s title and the edition number handwritten by the artist too. Each serigraph edition also has a guarantee from the artist that after this he will not come out with any other serigraph series for the same painting, thus maintaining exclusivity.`A0 Ram Kumar serigraphs are available at Rs 1.5 lakh, his paintings are valued at over Rs 1 crore. A Paritosh Sen serigraph sells for Rs 36,000, as compared to his canvas price of Rs 50 lakh. Most of these serigraphs were sold in 2006 at just Rs 12,000 each. The prices of serigraphs have risen by a stunning 650 per cent in just six months and it shows no signs of stopping. They are emerging as one of the hottest new forms of art investment. And many middle class
connoisseurs are realising that "multiple originals"
(another name for serigraphs) is the way to make their purchases more
relevant. —MF
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