2 Jan 2008

Chitra Santhe - Art Fair (Bangalore) Dec 30, 2007

Most of the 'artists' this year too were hobby painters et al. However, there was a sprinkling of fine arts students from other districts of Karnataka. According to official figures there were 1,700 art stalls and at least a 100,000 people attended. I also heard that more than Rs 1 crore changed hands!

There were very few works that I liked, amongst them were pen and ink drawings by an artist from Chikmaglur and a couple of paintings by an artist from Hassan. Unfortunatley, there were many reproductions right from SL Haldenkar's 'Glow of Hope' painting (please visit Jaganmohan Palace, Mysore to see the original), to John Fernandes to even SH Raza! The different versions of Glow of Hope, which incidentally is on sale at every Santhe, was truly pathetic this year. At least all the copies I saw had no resemblance to the original except for the fact that they featured a woman holding a lamp. The magic created by Haldenkar was completely missing!

SL Haldenkar's 'Glow of Hope'
Prices were as high as Rs 5 lakhs (the painting of an elephant was priced at Rs 5 lakhs - see below). Here are a few images from the Santhe.
Chitra Santhe
Chitra Santhe

Chitra Santhe
Chitra Santhe
Chitra Santhe
Chitra Santhe
Chitra Santhe
If you visited the Santhe, what did you think about it? Did you like the paintings on display? Did you buy anything? Were the prices reasonable? What is the best part of an event like this? Mail your comments to me.

3 comments:

  1. It is a very good flatform for an artist, espesialy for bigginers, they can gain lot of confident, but it is happening once in a year it is good if happen twice in a year.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I have visited the fair last year, it was my first visit. It was really nice; I met with artist not only from Karnataka but from all over India.
    In galleries I see work of three to five artists; here I got opportunity to see works of various artists though most of them were students.

    http://debug7000.blogspot.com


    Thanks
    Deepak

    ReplyDelete
  3. I have visited the fair last year, it was my first visit. It was really nice; I met with artist not only from Karnataka but from all over India.
    In galleries I see work of three to five artists; here I got opportunity to see works of various artists though most of them were students.

    http://debug7000.blogspot.com


    Thanks
    Deepak Kumar

    ReplyDelete