Indian art market growing, collectibles worth $183 million were sold in 2023
Mint, she said that the overall size of the auction market expanded by more than a fifth in 2023, from an estimated $150 million in 2022. And so far in 2024, sales have already reached $90 million. "The market has grown significantly (in value and volume) over the last four years, through the pandemic and the lockdown.
One of the reasons that the top end of the market has grown is because there were some particularly important top-quality works that came up for auction and there was competitive bidding for them. Across segments during these years, we sold a significantly higher volume of art than in the preceding years, as collectors had the time to focus on art," she said. She has also founded an art fair, Art Mumbai.
In September 2023, the auction house sold a record-breaking Amrita Sher-Gil painting ‘The Story Teller’ dating back to 1937. The oil-on-canvas masterpiece sold for ₹61.8 crore (including buyer's fee), setting a new record and surpassing the previous one set just a month before. Till date, it holds the record for the highest-ever price fetched for an Indian work of art.
The September auction generated over ₹181 crore in total for the gallery, marking the creation of two other art records. That same month, rival Pundole’s auction house in Mumbai sold a Sayed Haider Raza painting titled Gestation for ₹51.75 crore, including the buyer’s fee. Next month, in October, an untitled Manjit Bawa artwork depicting the Hindu deity Shiva was sold for $2.3 million (about ₹20 crore), a record sale for the artist done in London by Sotheby's.
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