State of the Art

The Indian art market is at a tipping point and likely to grow exponentially over the next few years with a younger breed of collectors fuelling growth.

- Smita Tripathi

In 2023, Saffronart—India’s leading auction house that is celebrating its 25th anniversary this year—sold an Amrita Sher-Gil painting called The Story Teller for ₹61.80 crore, way above its estimate of between ₹28-38 crore, creating a record for Modern Indian Art. But in mid March this year, that record was shattered when Christie’s sold Maqbool Fida Husain’s Untitled (Gram Yatra) for $13.75 million (₹119 crore), making it the most expensive Modern Indian painting ever sold. In April last year, online auction house, AstaGuru sold a stainless steel and resin sculpture by Anish Kapoor for ₹9.61 crore, almost double of its estimate of ₹5 crore. The recently concluded 16th edition of the India Art Fair, the country’s largest art exhibition saw a record number of 120 exhibitors with galleries such as Vadhera Art Gallery selling 90 per cent of their booth on the first day with prices ranging from $2,500 to $300,000, including works by Sudhir Patwardhan, Atul Dodiya, Shilpa Gupta, and Vivan Sundaram.