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Women art dealers of Kolkata have built an excellent reputation that attracts buyers from across the globe. Most art galleries here are owned by women, writes Soma Mitra Mukherjee from Kolkata WOMEN are sensitive. Beauty or tragedy moves them tremendously. They identify quickly with others’ emotions. Signs of weakness? Not at all. Women art gallery owners in Kolkata are using these very traits to wheel and deal in the highly competitive art market and are making a success of it, too. Kolkata boasts of a number of art galleries that are run astutely by women. The quality and value of the paintings or sculptures are judged keenly by gallery owners like Reena Lath (30), proprietor of Aakar Prakaar in Hindustan Park. Lath, who was taught the tricks of the trade by her mother-in-law, Neerja, admits that a woman’s instinct comes into play in the final selection of an artwork. She has no formal qualification in the art business, and neither did her mother-in-law.
Lath says she is committed towards promoting young and upcoming artists like Aditya Basak, Chhatrapati Dutta, Samindranath Mazumdar, Sheikh Shahjahan and Paula Sengupta. She has a huge stock at her 5,000 sq ft open-air-cum-indoor gallery. "My mother-in-law started this business in 1993 with our three-generation family art collection that includes artists such as Jamini Roy, Ganesh Pyne, Laxma Goud, Ganesh Haloi, Jogen Choudhury and Paritosh Sen," says Lath. She adds: "The profits have been amazing. A Jogen Choudhury bought for Rs 70,000 a few years ago has fetched Rs 2 lakh this year. Who says women don’t have business sense?" Upcoming artist Sudip Rakshit (34) says women dealers are good for young artists. "They pay up on time. They never create money problems for us. Most importantly, they always give us good display space in their galleries if they have committed to do so. They don’t try to cheat on such things or backtrack on their promises," he vouches. Art is a serious business and buyers make huge investments on the recommendations of the gallery owners. Women gallery owners are held in high esteem by renowned art investors such as former head of Tata Steel Russi Mody. Mody says women art dealers like Laila Sanyal (32) do their research well and are committed to fair dealing with both the buyer and the artist. Sanyal runs a mobile art gallery in the city, taking her art collection to the homes and offices of buyers too busy to walk into art galleries themselves. Having done an apprenticeship with ‘Collection’, a Kolkata-based company specialising in art reproductions and reprints, Sanyal initially began by selling prints of famous paintings but soon graduated to the real thing. Sanyal started her business by only investing in a car, which she used for ferrying her collection. "Artists give me their work on consignment. I don’t pay them upfront. Only after the painting is sold and I get the cheque, do I pay the artist, having deducted my commission. The whole business is run on trust," she explains. Today she has an annual turnover of over Rs 5 lakh. The Sanskriti Art Gallery at Alipore Park was started 18 years ago by Ambika Beri (52). "Men did not think art was a good business option at that time. But many women, who had done fine art, design or art appreciation courses in this culturally-inclined city, took to art dealership instinctively. When the boom came, we were sitting pretty," she smiles. Beri displays established artists at her 5,000 sq ft-gallery. She deals in young artists sometimes, but not those straight out of college. "Most of the buyers are from Mumbai, Delhi, the US and the UK. Corporate houses are big buyers. Young bankers and professional couples, too, are now looking towards art for investment. Earlier, art was bought with collection in mind; now it is like the stock exchange. Buying and selling continues, depending on the profit margins," says Beri. So, do women help women in the art world? Beri is categorical: "The selection of an artist is never on the basis of gender. It’s the quality of the work that counts. Having said that, I must say that women artists like Jaya Ganguly, Jayashree Chakravorty and Shipra Bhattacharya do extremely well," she adds. The grand dame of Kolkata’s art scenario is, of course, Katayun Saklat. She refuses to divulge her age but is definitely far senior to the other gallery owners. Saklat set up Gallery Katayun at Auckland Place. An alumni of the Government Art College and the Indian Art College in Kolkata, as well as a student of London-based Patrick Reyntiens, she is perhaps one of those art dealers who could have become a leading artist herself. "But I realised earlier on that I would make more money as a gallery owner when there were hardly any good dealers around but a plethora of aspiring talented artists. I decided to become the conduit between those artists and potential buyers. Now, with two galleries in the city, I can only say that it was absolutely the right decision," says Saklat. "The artist inside me often helps me make the right selection from the thousands of paintings that come in front of me but sometimes that artist disagrees with my business sense’s choice of a particular work. The business sense then prevails," she says, tongue-in-cheek. For buyers like Chanda Aditya (56) from New Jersey, the US, women gallery owners are very dependable. "The shipping of the paintings is important. I have bought art from CIMA and Chitrakoot Art Gallery. I find that the women dealers are particular about the packing of the paintings for shipment. I am impressed with their professionalism and attention to detail," Aditya declares. Women art dealers here have managed to build an excellent reputation which brings buyers to them from across the globe. Almost all art galleries in Kolkata are owned by women, and going by their stock profile and clientele, one can safely assume that these women entrepreneurs caught on to a good thing well in time and are now reaping the benefits. — WFS
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