Bold strokes: Domestic sales of Indian art double after pandemic

Record bids at auctions show the country's rich clearly love modern masters

An auction in Mumbai earlier this month broke a few records. Of the total sales of Rs 181 crore, an acrylic on canvas by Sayed Haider Raza, titled “Gestation” (1989), fetched a whopping Rs 51.75 crore, becoming the most expensive Indian artwork ever sold. Francis Newton Souza and Tyeb Mehta’s works also invited record-breaking bids.
 

In 2021, Astaguru’s online auction of Indian modern art made the news for its white glove sale (where every item on auction is bought) amid the pandemic-induced economic slowdown that year. Such sales are perhaps the most emphatic evidence of the rising Indian interest in the art market.

Sustained interest by seasoned investors, an expanding base of new buyers and the internet have led to the domestic sale of Indian art through auctions doubling between Financial Year 2018-19 (FY19) and FY23. As many as 1,464 pieces of art worth Rs 717 crore were auctioned in FY19. A few years later, in FY23, over 3,800 pieces were sold for Rs 1,146 crore as seen in chart 1 (click image for interactive link). 
 

“All galleries felt compelled to have a substantial digital presence during the pandemic. That trend has continued to a large extent, where people are now comfortable viewing art online,” says Roshini Vadehra, director of the Vadehra Art Gallery in Delhi.

Venetia Vickers, head (financial knowledge) at Indian Art Investor, an art market intelligence firm, says that while experienced buyers (aged 55 years and above) are still the ones spending the "big bucks", an increasing number of young people are exploring the market.

“Artworks that have an appreciating value come at a much higher price (priced Rs 1 crore and above). But one is more often than not assured of returns. Experienced collectors put their money into such pieces. Young buyers are still dabbing their toes in the market and prefer buying more affordable works of art (priced between Rs 5 lakh-50 lakh),” she says.

Some estimates suggest that India's rich are investing as much as 11 per cent of their wealth in passion investments including works of art. 

Vadehra says that the time when art was just an investment is "long over".

“That was the case during the market boom from 2005-2008, but today art collectors are far more evolved, and buy art for art’s sake – the joy of owning an artwork, sharing that joy, being part of an artist’s journey, and while buying a major artwork – the idea that one is investing in a piece of history or anticipated history,” she says.

The dominance of Indian modernist artists in the number of artworks sold over the years perhaps is a nod to this sentiment.

Data shows that in the past decade, works by modernists like Maqbool Fida Husain, Raza, Francis Newton Souza, Vasudeo S Gaitonde and Amrita Sher-Gil, form over 60 per cent of the number of pieces and over 80 per cent of the value of art sold through auctions in India (chart 2).
 

Vickers says that the influence of the independence era in the modernists’ art may explain their appeal. “Pre-modernists like Raja Ravi Verma were mainly into royalty and religion and created mostly figurative and landscape works. Modernists, on the other hand, were experimental and deeply influenced by European art while creating their own signature styles,” she says. These artists were the first to drift away from the Bengal school of art and start the Progressive Artists’ Group.

India’s art market shows up in trade numbers. The country has imported $1 billion worth of artworks, including collectors’ pieces and antiques, since 2012, shows trade data by the United Nations. Exports have been worth nearly $2 billion over the same period, though the gap between the two has narrowed in recent years (chart 3).
 

As the number of Indians on the rich and the ultra-rich list increases, this momentum in the Indian art market is likely to continue.