Art-inspired products are very popular as merchandise around the world and you can find them at any museum shop you visit. Perhaps it was this ethos that inspired Delhi-based Vadehra Art Gallery to offer limited edition signed prints, books on Indian art and artists, and art-inspired products such as cushions and coasters.
While the gallery started making products inspired by the works of big names such as SH Raza, Shilpa Gupta, Akbar Padamsee and Atul Dodiya back in 2008, it was only in 2020 that it launched an online shop to retail all of the above. “Besides the prints and products, our online shop has now expanded to include editioned artworks as well as selected photographs,” says Parul Vadehra, Director, Vadehra Art Gallery.
The prints are made in close collaboration with the artists to select the images and supervise the print process. In terms of the products, they usually select artworks with appealing colours or imagery and also those that have interesting details that can be highlighted.
“We had to source the right vendors for materials, printing and luckily, we were able to find the right people. Since the online selling space was new to us, we had to do a lot of research in terms of the technical backend applications to be used so our visitors could have a seamless experience. Systems had to be put into place for capturing online payments and also for auto calculation of shipping,” she adds.
The gallery celebrates the ecosystem around art and is happy to see that clients are too. “It has been very exciting to see the response we are getting in online sales. Buyers are coming from all parts of the country, including remote locations where a gallery would not typically have a reach. So, in that sense, we have been able to widen the audience for contemporary art through this online engagement,” says Vadehra.
This lockdown project has certainly achieved the mission of making art accessible and brought the work of artists in forms that are not just aesthetic but useful as well.