When MF Husain’s painting Gram Yatra sold for Rs 118 crore at a Christie’s New York auction on Wednesday, exhibiting an over four-fold jump on a previous sales record of Rs 26.8 crore for the artist, the leap signified the upward trajectory Indian art has been on in recent years. Home to a host of galleries and auction houses, the country’s art business is thriving. The younger generation is gravitating toward art, becoming serious buyers and investors. Artists are being valued more. The India Art Fair has celebrated 16 editions, reporting robust sales. Art galleries and auction houses like DAG, Saffronart, AstaGuru, and Pundole’s are upbeat and expanding, not just to tier-II cities like Hyderabad and Chennai, but to global destinations like London and New York as well, capitalising on both physical and online sales.
Non-fungible tokens and digital art is becoming a movement, holding its own. The Indian art auction market has almost doubled in the past five years, to over $200 million, and with private gallery sales thrown in the figure would be about $400 million. In 2024, sales by the top 50 artists reached Rs 301 crore, a 19% increase from 2023. In these times of market volatility, art is also being considered a stable investment asset. According to the Hurun India Art List 2024, there was a 59% rise in lots sold at auctions from 2021 to 2024, signifying serious investor interest.
But when it comes to playing in a global arena, Indian art is a treasure trove yet to be discovered. Value for Indian art is still nowhere near the high scales global art can reach. Take just Husain. His global contemporaries Pablo Picasso and Andy Warhol are not just household names the world over, their record sales stand at $179.4 million (for Les Femmes d’Alger) and $195 million (for Shot Sage Blue Marilyn), respectively, as compared to the $13.75 million we are celebrating for Husain. The previous highest record for an Indian artist is $7.4 million for Amrita Sher-Gil’s The Story Teller. Other most expensive Indian paintings are in the range of $2.5 million to $3.9 million for artists VS Gaitonde, FN Souza, Tyeb Mehta, and Raja Ravi Varma. When global auction house Christie’s held its inaugural live sale in India in 2013, vowing to make it an annual event, the affair lasted only four years. Another global auction giant, Sotheby’s, tested the Indian market with its first sale in India in 2018, but retreated after a second attempt in 2019. Both, however, still have offices in India.
But breaching the Rs 100-crore mark for an Indian artist promises to be a turning point, igniting a conversation about Indian art in a whole new light. Not only does it enhance the value of Indian artists as a whole, and not just Husain, it also reinforces faith in art as a reliable investment tool, having meaning more than a mere collectible. So far, the strongest market for India art has been India. A record sale can change all that, signalling to the world to look at Indian art with new eyes. Industry veterans are already hailing it as a Renaissance moment for Indian art and artists. And, while this time it was reportedly an Indian entity deeply entrenched in art shelling out the coveted dollars, the day does not seem far when Indian art finds itself caught in hot bidding from non-Indian buyers too.