Art in their abode

Some homes keep their secrets well. In Mumbai, Mukesh Ambani's Antilla, which has hosted its big-ticket parties, has floored visitors to such an extent that few recall seeing any art there. On prodding, they might recall "a kind of bird" - possibly a massive Garuda by artist Satish Gupta - at the entrance, part of a series of artworks commissioned especially for the skyscraper, though it is the junior Ambanis who take art collecting more seriously, with both office and their residence brimming with masters and contemporaries from F N Souza to Chintan Upadhyay, Jogen Chowdhury to Sujata Kejriwal. Unsurprisingly, really, with Tina Ambani supporting the Harmony show, and spouse Anil Ambani providing discreet inputs. In New Delhi, it is Sunil Mittal's home that has remained unreported for its art collection, with the Mittals apparently inclined to support emerging artists over established masters.

But it is the masters that seem to excite most collectors, with M F Husain right on top as the "first buy" for everyone from Parmeshwar Godrej to HCL's Shiv and Kiran Nadar, from Harsh Goenka to Kiran Mazumdar Shaw. It's another matter that Shiv Nadar is partial to Raja Ravi Varma (he has the artist's iconic Saraswati and Lakshmi in his office), while Goenka (whose love affair swung from the Bengal School to the Bombay modernists to, finally, the Baroda artists), is now collecting portraits, including self-portraits, of and by artists.

Among keen collectors, some have been more visible than others, especially when bidding at auctions. These include Kiran Nadar (S H Raza's Saurashtra for Rs 16.5 crore, and more recently Subodh Gupta's Line of Control for a rumoured Rs 10 crore), Tina Ambani (F N Souza's Birth for Rs 10.5 crore), or Malvinder Singh (whose iconic buy was Atul Dodiya's Three Painters, while Arpita Singh's Wish Dream set him back by Rs 9.5 crore). Malvinder and wife Japna's collection is an eclectic one, tending to favour the Bombay and Baroda artists, but then most collectors (the Nadars, the Jains of Bennett Coleman & Co, DLF's K P Singh, the Jindals, the Godrejs, the Bachchans, Dabur's Burmans) have tended to help themselves from the same smorgasbord of names such as Krishen Khanna, Jehangir Sabavala, Akbar Padamsee, Gulammohammad and Nilima Sheikh, Bhupen Khakhar down to Rameshwar Broota, Atul Dodiya and Paresh Maity. And yet, the best collection of moderns, as Delhi's collecting circles well know, is probably that of the reticent Rajiv Savara, while in Mumbai, a part of Amrita Jhaveri's iconic collection will be auctioned by Christie's in New York. In Bangalore, Kiran Mazumdar Shaw, in a nod to her husband, collects Scottish artists besides works by homegrown favourite, Yusuf Arakkal.

If Anupam Poddar is acknowledged as the most influential collector of contemporary art, others in that fold include Rajshree Pathy and Nitin Bhayana. Poddar, along with his mother Lekha, established the Devi Art Foundation, while Kiran Nadar is associated with a museum that bears her stamp and name. Nor are they the only ones concerned with museums - Pathy is committed to opening one in Coimbatore, Harsh Goenka is considering another in Navi Mumbai, while Sangita Jindal says the family already has the space for a private museum in Mumbai.

As for Lakshmi Mittal, in all the bombast over the ArcelorMittal Orbit that he gifted London, most have overlooked the Serpentine Gallery pavilion designed by Herzog & de Meuron and Chinese artist Ai Weiwei featuring a landscape in cork, with a roof that collects water and becomes a reflecting surface for the sky, that he snapped up. And we thought reflecting surfaces were Anish Kapoor's thing. Incidentally, the India born, British artist is on every billionaire collector's list of next favourite buy.

Kishore Singh is is a Delhi-based writer and art critic. These views are personal and do not reflect those of the organisation with which he is associated