The Indian Art Market

The Indian Art Market is an established and flourishing industry where there are organized, liquid financial markets. Over the past decade, economic growth combined with a more experienced collector base has led to outstanding auction results and growth of the Indian Art Market.

The numbers reflect the size of an established and growing industry. For the 2024-2025 fiscal year, the total sales in the Indian Art Market(in rupees) are expected to be approximately 1620.6 crores ($192.7 million). Although the number is lower than last year’s total of 1698.3 crores, the overall strength of the market has improved. Currently, the sell-through rate for the Indian Art Market has reached a record level of 97.2%. It reflects the fact that buyers have strong support for one another and also indicates that there continues to be very high demand for artworks in spite of limited availability.

There is a huge amount of capital currently available to acquire Rare Artwork with Superb Quality and Provenance at the High End of the Market and March 2025 was the “turning point” of this financial revival when M.F. Husain’s amazing piece of artwork Untitled (Gram Yatra) sold on the 2nd of March 2025 for an unbelievable ₹119.1 crores (US$13.8 million) at ‘Christies’ and he became the first Indian artist to exceed ₹100 crores in sale.

Some of this momentum continued in September 2025 with a historic (100%) sum of lots sold during the Saffronart Evening Sale, achieving a sales record of ₹355.77 crore (US$41.63 million).

One of the largest catalysts for the increase in the number of transactions recently has been the significant (and pivotal) change in regulations. The Goods and Services Tax (GST) applied to fine art in India dropped from 12% to 5% on or about September 2025. Accordingly, this tax reform has had a profound impact on high net worth collectors’ deal math and produced a large positive impact on invoices to the seller, consequently leading to more capital directed to investing in fine art.

Another factor for the growth is that auction houses have been able to expand their reach significantly. For example, AstaGuru had a turnover of ₹426.78 crores during FY 2024-2025, representing 26.3% of the total market. Likewise, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has predicted that the Indian economy will grow between 7.3% and 8% during FY 2025–2026, which provides a good economic foundation for both the art market to continue its momentum and for it to reach new levels of success on a global basis.

Author

The Urbanite

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