Kiran Nadar with M. F. Husain’s Mahabharat. 1990.

Capital Collectors Meera Menezes applauds Delhi-based art lovers who have made daring choices.

A PRICELESS COLLECTION OF 19TH CENTURY PHOTOGRAPHS painstakingly put together by a culture guru. Steel butterflies hovering on the walls of a living room. A museum of cutting-edge contemporary Indian art set up by a mother-son team. An avid collector of video art, whose ‘Daily Dose’ on Facebook offers tips to over a thousand members. A corporate office that resembles an art gallery. An ex-Ambassador from Holland, who ran a foundation for Indian artists in Amsterdam in the ’90s. Disparate though their visions might be, all these Delhi-based collectors are bound together by their passion for acquiring exciting works of art.

While the capital has always been home to a number of industrialists, like Malvinder Singh, ex-CEO of Ranbaxy, who have built up sizeable collections of modern and contemporary art, this article does not attempt to offer an overview. Instead, it concentrates on a few individuals who have made a difference to the Indian art scene by making daring choices and having a long-term vision for the arts.

The Lekha and Anupam Poddar Collection, housed at Devi Art Foundation in Gurgaon, is undoubtedly one of the most important assemblages of modern and contemporary art in the capital. Started by Lekha Poddar in the ’80s, the initial emphasis was on paintings by artists of the Bengal School and the Progressive Artists Group. er son, Anupam, on the other hand, focused on contemporary art – particularly, experimental art from Indian and other South Asian practitioners. Curated shows at Devi ensure that the public enjoys access to this significant collection.

Another private collection, which hopes to go public next year, has been put together by Kiran Nadar, wife of Shiv Nadar, the co-founder of HCL Technologies. What started off in the ’80s as a foray to buy works for a new home has metamorphosized into a sizeable collection of modern and contemporary art. Her first acquisitions were commissioned works of M. F. Husain and Manjit Bawa, both of whom she holds in high esteem. Since then, Nadar has been acquiring works from galleries, artists and auctions. “I collect very eclectically without any real focus on any one school. Building an anthology of one particular artist is not my way.” However, since the idea of a museum has taken root, Nadar is keen to plug the gaps in her collection to make it as representative of artists’ oeuvres as possible: she feels drawn to works by Shibu Natesan, Surendran Nair, Subodh Gupta and Jagannath Panda.

Nadar plans to throw her collection open to the public next year. It will be housed in a temporary gallery space while the museum is under construction. Slated to occupy the HCL campus in Noida, Nadar says that the main building should be up in the next 18 months. Her motives for setting up an institution are clear: “It’s time we started doing something for the arts. In India, a ‘museum-going culture’ doesn’t exist in a big way; so, to get people interested in art is a great thing.”

The Alkazi Collection of Photography is a significant archive of 19th and early 20th century Colonial photographs. The collection, which has been painstakingly built over a quarter of a decade by Ebrahim Alkazi, has been moved from venues in the US and London to its final resting place in New Delhi, where it is now accessible to academics andmembers of the general public. The Alkazi Archive currently occupies three floors in Delhi and contains over 90,000 photographic prints, documenting history from the perspective of both the rulers and the ruled. Some of its highlights are the Tressider Album, the photographic diaries of the Kanpur Civil Surgeon, John Nicholas Tressider (1819- 1889) and author Susan Gole’s rare collection of maps. Gole is famous for the book Maps Of Mughal India. A veritable treasure trove, Alkazi’s collection boasts photographs by Felice Beato, Alexander Green law, Linnaeus Tripe, Samuel Bourne and Lala Deen Dayal. The Archive also houses a strong library of 19thcentury publications with books on art and architecture. It has also brought out publications like Lucknow: City of Illusion, Painted Photographs: Coloured Portraiture in India and Vijaynagara: Splendour in Ruins. Forthcoming publications this year include The Waterhouse Albums: Central Indian Provinces, which features rare images of the Begums of Bhopal.