India’s art market is entering a phase where finding works of art is harder than finding buyers. Speaking exclusively to Mint, Damian Vesey of Christie's said the surge in demand since the pandemic has outpaced the supply of high-quality works to the market.
“The challenge is not demand anymore. It is bringing high-quality works to the market. We continue to see that collectors remain focused on quality, rarity and provenance, with demand for exceptional works of art remaining strong and continuing to set new records for South Asian art," said Vesey, director and international specialist for South Asian modern and contemporary art at Christie’s.
That shift is playing out as the market expands. The British auction house's South Asian modern and contemporary sales have grown over 88% since 2016. The category, which was about $100 million globally in 2015, has already crossed that level in 2026 with just one major sales cycle completed.
Buyer interest is broadening across geographies and age groups. Indian collectors remain central, but participation is now spread across the US, Europe and Asia. Rival Sotheby's has sold about $135 million worth of South Asian art over the past five years, pointing to sustained global demand.
The buyer base is also getting younger. First-time buyers made up a quarter of participants in 2025, with millennials and Gen Z accounting for almost half of them.
“They’re very discerning, very well read, and they’re building collections for the long term,” Vesey said.
This is a very different market from the pre-2008 cycle, when there was more speculative buying. The current demand is more research-driven and selective.
Pricing is resetting, but not for marquee names alone. Works priced above $1 million accounted for about 48% of total sales value last year, driven by headline results such as M.F. Husain’s Untitled (Gram Yatra), which sold for $13.8 million.
Structural squeeze
At the same time, the mid-market continues to carry weight. Works below $500,000 contributed the bulk of activity and remain the entry point for new collectors. Recently, Mumbai auction house Saffronart sold the most expensive artwork yet at ₹167.2 crore: the 19th-century canvas by Raja Ravi Varma titled Yashoda & Krishna (circa 1890).
The supply squeeze is structural, not cyclical, unlike today’s market-driven cycles, independent art critic Uma Nair said. Most of India’s modern masters are no longer alive, she said.
“They were not producers, they were creators,” she said, which naturally limits availability over time. As a result, what comes to the market is often drawn from smaller, tightly held collections where rarity and provenance matter more than volume.
The lines between segments are also blurring, Christie's said. At its Asian Art Week in New York, it achieved sales (online and live) of $29.1 million. Two works by Ganesh Pyne, each estimated below $500,000, sold for over $2 million earlier this year, including in this auction.
Such price movements become more common when rare works surface. This only bodes well with the larger picture. India's secondary art auction market has grown by leaps and bounds. From being valued at about $120 million in 2019, it has grown to an estimated $150 million in 2022 and about $192.7 million in 2025, according to industry estimates and AsignArt data.
For all the demand, the constraint is clear.
“What buyers want are fresh works that haven’t been seen on the market for decades,” Vesey said. Over the past two years, about 92% of the works at Christie’s auctions have been fresh to the market. That ratio is increasingly critical to driving competition and pricing.
Sourcing difficulties
But sourcing such works is not straightforward. Many important paintings are locked in long-held private collections or institutions. Others appear sporadically and often without warning.
One such case began with a grainy image from Oslo. A painting in a hospital corridor, next to a defibrillator, turned out to be a major Husain and later became one of the most expensive Indian artworks sold.
“There isn’t a typical seller, works can come from anywhere,” Vesey said.
The supply constraint is changing how auctions are structured. Christie’s upcoming London sale, Sublime Shadows, is built around a single-owner collection assembled between the mid-1990s and early 2000s. All 93 works are fresh to the market.
That format is becoming more important. It allows auction houses to bring depth and rarity together in one sale instead of piecing together smaller consignments. The collection includes works by Ganesh Pyne, K. K. Hebbar and V. S. Gaitonde.
That is also why single-owner collections such as Sublime Shadows stand out.
“It is Christie’s good fortune to get a collection like this,” added Nair. She said the next inflection point for the market will be when mid-career artists begin to enter auction cycles in a meaningful way.
