Why is everyone talking about Indian Modern & Contemporary Art these days?

Why Indian Modern and Contemporary Art Is the Talk of the Town

Indian modern and contemporary art is having a moment, and it isn't hard to see why. This month at Sotheby's London, S.H. Raza's Paysage Rouge sold for £3.75 million, ten times its high estimate. It led the department's highest-ever sale, which set nine new artist records along the way. Raza had already passed $6 million in Mumbai in 2023 with Gestation. Then in April this year, Yashoda and Krishna by Raja Ravi Varma, the great painter from Travancore in the South, became the most expensive Indian painting ever sold at auction, at almost $18 million. The art world is building around this success. In June, Christie's held its first South Asian modern sale in London in seven years. AstaGuru, India's largest auction house, has set up in London, and new museums and galleries for the field continue to open, such as the Museum of Art & Photography in Bengaluru. Specialists also note that today's buyers are more educated and more discerning than in earlier booms, which suggests growth that is built to last.

Much of the attention still falls on the North and West, on the Bombay Progressives such as M.F. Husain, F.N. Souza and Raza himself. My own passion, though, has always been the South, and Madras in particular. The Madras School of Arts, founded in 1850, is one of the oldest art schools in India. Under its principals D.P. Roy Chowdhury and then K.C.S. Paniker, it nurtured a movement that went its own way. Rather than looking to Paris, Paniker urged his students to find a modern language in their own surroundings: in script and calligraphy, folk art, temple sculpture and the rhythms of line. In 1966 he founded the Cholamandal Artists' Village on the coast near Madras, still one of the oldest artists' communities in India. From this world came artists such as A.P. Santhanaraj, S. Dhanapal, K.M. Adimoolam, K. Ramanujam and R.B. Bhaskaran, who are to the South what Husain and Souza are to the North. The Madras scene grew up somewhat apart from the commercial centres, so it has kept a rare, untouched authenticity. Remarkably, even its leading modern masters remain affordable compared with their northern counterparts, which makes it, to my mind, one of the great opportunities in the field today.

There's a bigger picture too. India is one of the fastest-growing major economies in the world, and the South, with Chennai, Bengaluru and Hyderabad at its heart, is one of its engines. As wealth and confidence grow at home, Indian collectors are buying back their own heritage. I believe Indian art is set to stand alongside China's as one of the dominant forces in the global art world, and collecting now is a way to be part of that story from the start. It isn't only about investment, though. Major museums, from Tate in London, which The Noble Sage is proud to have supplied, to MAP in Bengaluru, are giving this art the serious attention it deserves. For newer collectors, works on paper by significant artists are a wonderful and affordable way in. For many people, especially in the diaspora, collecting is also a way of staying connected to their roots.

Above all, it is simply extraordinary art to live with, rich in story, colour and a heritage stretching back thousands of years. If you'd like to talk about Indian modern and contemporary art, or about the Madras scene in particular, please do get in touch with us at The Noble Sage. We'd love to help you find your way in.