Artistic appreciation is something young people in India learn to enjoy at a very early age.  As children, they are given choices - studying dance, vocal and instrumental music or a teacher is hired once a week to give lessons in art.  While my sister thumped the floor learning Bharat Natyam steps, I dabbled in painting for over seven years, which eventually developed into a hobby.   By the age of 12, my writings were being published in major newspapers and magazine, and I soon learned that writing is a jealous mistress, demanding all my attention, so I became a slave to multimedia communications involving print, radio and film.

With the opening of the Rubin Museum of Art in 2004, headquartered on 150 West 17th Street, (www.rmanyc.com), exclusively focusing on Himalayan and South Asian Art, I met Donald Rubin, Chairman of RMA who told me that "it cost over $68 million to re-design the old Barney's building into this beautiful six storey museum complex."  He had come a long way from his humble beginnings as a immigrant and had a small collection of Himalayan and South Asian paintings which he started to collect over 30 years ago.   His favorite paintings was a Jain mandala which he adored and hung in the master bedroom.   As he prospered in business, he started buying more art,  although he knew nothing about the Himalayas nor South Asia.  He paused and said, "May be, in some re-incarnation, I may have lived in the Himalayas or some place in the Sub-continent! of India."   Next thing he knew he was looking for a place to "house" his paintings.

With a twinkle in his eyes, Donald confessed, "It is my dream to have the first-ever Jain Art Collection on the East coast.  I think Jain mandalas are the mother of all mandalas, and I need help to make this happen."  I informed him there were many Jain diamond merchants in New York and his dream could come true, so we started welcoming the wives and daughter-in-laws of the Jain community in New York to set up a committee, and  move on the dream.

At the same time, I remembered meeting and interviewing Dr. Narender Kapany in Palo Alto, CA, where he spoke of his Sikh Art Collection which was exhibited in the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco, the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto, and the prestigious Smithsonian in Washington DC.   So I asked Donald Rubin whether he would be interested in having the first-ever Sikh Art exhibition on the East coast at RMA.   He replied that he never knew nor had seen any Sikh art, and I told him that within the past 500 years, the Sikhs in Punjab had their own art which was more concentrate on religion and Guru Nanak, the founder of Sikhism.  If he was interested, I could contact Dr. Kapany and start the ball rolling.  Donald thought it was a brilliant idea, so we contacted Dr. Kapany who sounded very pleased with the invitation, as he had been working on having a Sikh exhibition in New York.

Planning art exhibition for most museums takes over two years to formulate, especially when some paintings are coming for countries like India and China.  Within nine months to less than one year, RMA celebrated the gala opening of "I See No Stranger" displaying paintings on the early Sikh art and devotion for the next four-and-half months until January 29, 2007.  The successful evening entertained mainstream Americans with a Punjabi dinner banquet and visitors browsed the sixth floor, learning about Sikh art in the early 18th century in the Pahari and Mughal styles.  Hindu and Muslim artists represented the Sikh gurus through the eyes of their respective religious beliefs.  It was evident in the paintings that the portrayals of the gurus resembled Hindu gods and deities, in contrast with the Moghul artists portraying Guru Nanak as Muslim pirs (holy men).

Most new comers interested in Indian contemporary art need to visit museums and galleries on weekends to discover the different styles of paintings by artists from India.  Today, collecting art from India is big business and it  is important to understand the styles, mediums and where the painter comes from.

How to become an art collector

It is important to take the inexpensive route when buying a painting.  None of us can afford to buy Husain,Tyeb Mehta, or Jogen Chadhary, etc. unless we inherit it from our parents who had started the family art collection in the 60s-70s.   Most contemporary artists from India during that era are expensive.  Buy paintings you enjoy looking at and can afford.   Starting around $1,000 to $5,000, but concentrate and study the artist's style and technique.  Remember, it will take 2 to 5 years to double your investment, if you watch the art market.

For example, Shyamal Mukherjee has a unique style.  Whenever you see his paintings, it brings a smile on the face.  He is quoted in saying: "It is a pleasurable exercise for me to create art work on the reverse side of glass or acrylic sheet. The concept of painting on glass came to me while I was studying at the Rabindra Bharati University in Kolkata. It was during my student days, that I started creating this artistic style and learned how to capture the outer and inner perception of folk elements. My figurative art is part of the Bengali School, portraying people in vibrant colors."

He recalled: " Once I started to develop this technique of painting - my favorite medium - reverse oil or acrylic painting on transparent acrylic sheets, it became a satisfying experience, seeing the stage-by-stage development of the paints. This style of  drawing on acrylic sheets gives me more time to meditate over the face I try to reproduce. Though it takes more time, the painting acquires more elegance on acrylic. Although I may change my themes and subjects, I will never give up painting in this medium - even though this style is not an easy one."

Unlike on canvas, he has to paint the object in the reverse direction, so that it can be viewed correctly from the other side. Then, he also has to be very careful in painting the details, as getting them according to their requirement is difficult. Drawing on acrylic sheets "gives me more time to meditate over the face I try to reproduce. Even though it takes more time, the painting acquires more elegance on acrylic."