The Mahalaxmi Racecourse, which has been around for a long time, hosted the third Art Mumbai from November 13 to 16, 2025. This was the biggest test of the South Asian art market. The fair’s performance shows that the Indian art economy is “decoupling” from global trends, even though the global macroeconomic situation is changing. For example, the Chinese contemporary sector is shrinking, and demand for traditional Western art is slowing down. Art Mumbai 2025 had a lot of growth, with big jumps in exhibitor and visitor engagement, as well as, most importantly, transactional volume in the Modern and Contemporary categories. These developments happened even though global markets were going through a correction.
The fair set a new record by expanding its footprint to host 82 galleries, a 64% increase from its first edition in 2023. It attracted more than 26,000 visitors. Several galleries said that their sell-through rates were between 80% and 100%, which shows that this surge in engagement was not only big, but it also led to sales. The event showed that Mumbai is now the center of the Indian art world because it has a lot of private wealth, which has made it a marketplace that is both local and global.
The “Mumbai Advantage” and the Wealth Correlation
Looking at the city’s population and economy can help you understand how quickly Art Mumbai 2025 is selling. Mumbai is not only the host city, but it also plays a key role in the Indian art market’s liquidity. The fair is at the Mahalaxmi Racecourse, which is a central location for both the old money of South Mumbai and the city’s growing financial district capital.
The Hurun India Art List 2025 says that there is a clear link between the rise in private wealth in India and the purchase of art. In the year leading up to the fair, India gained 24 new billionaires, and Mumbai gained a millionaire household every 30 minutes, showing how quickly the city is making money. Investors are putting more of their excess disposable income into other assets. The art world has gone from being an afterthought for the wealthy to a full-fledged asset class that is important for social signaling and portfolio diversification.
The presence of well-known collectors on the VIP preview day, including heirs to the Ambani, Birla, and Piramal fortunes, was a sign of a generational consolidation of patronage. Indian collecting is still very much a family and dynastic thing, unlike Western institutional patronage. A certain type of liquidity known as “patient capital” was responsible for this “wealth effect” at Art Mumbai. Collectors there weren’t buying and selling works for quick profits like they do in speculative bubbles; instead, they were “holding” assets, especially large-scale paintings.
This approach in the Modernist camp removed supply from the market, leading to an increase in prices over time.
How Saffronart and Infrastructure Work Together
The way Art Mumbai is owned and run is a unique structural feature. Dinesh and Minal Vazirani of Saffronart, India’s largest auction house, co-founded the fair. The main (gallery) and secondary (auction) markets work together at the fair. International fairs and auction houses maintain a strict boundary between church and state. This juxtaposition is an odd one.
This convergence worked out well in Mumbai. The Vaziranis’ long history of buying and selling at auctions left a mark on the fair in the form of a culture that values open data and uses it to set prices. Dinesh Vazirani’s focus on “transparency and ethics” and “publicly listed prices” has made buyers trust him more than primary markets that aren’t clear. On the fair floor, collectors felt free to make commitments of six and seven figures, which made it easier to find the right price. This was possible because the organizers’ ecosystem provided auction data without the need for explicit requests.
How to Make Money from the “Gallery Gap”
The “Gallery Gap,” which is the big price difference between Western and Indian masterpieces, was a common story that helped sales at Art Mumbai 2025. Market watchers have noted that seminal works by Indian modernists are often available for a fraction of the price that a mid-tier Western contemporary artist might command, which is in the $10 million range.
This arbitrage opportunity was crucial for investors who care about value. Domestic collectors who think prices will level off in the next ten years aggressively targeted the “undervalued” status of Indian art at the fair, which acted as a way to fix things. The Knight Frank 2025 Wealth Report backed the idea up by showing that modern Indian art did better than more traditional luxury assets like commercial real estate and gold, with a 30% increase over three years. Art Mumbai was more than just a place to look ; it was also a place where investors could buy undervalued works of art and make money.
Progressivism’s Control in Art Mumbai 2025
The “Moderns,” who were mostly artists from the Bombay Progressive Artists’ Group (PAG) and their peers who were active before 2000, still made up the fair’s main source of income. This area was for rich, risk-averse collectors and was in a special “Moderns” tent that looked like Frieze Masters.
M.F. had a fantastic year at the auction, which helped sales in this area. Husain’s Gram Yatra (1953) set records by selling for more than $10 million. In this record-breaking setting, galleries at Art Mumbai that showed high-quality moderns were able to “sell” the work instead of the artist.
The Moderns section made news on the first day of the show when Volte Gallery, which is known for its cutting-edge contemporary program, sold a big canvas by Manjit Bawa. Bawa’s large-format oils are very difficult to find, which has caused their prices to go up a lot in his market. The rich and famous in Mumbai now own his unique art, which shows ghostly figures against flat, bright colors. The quick completion of this deal suggests that top-tier Moderns have instant access to cash; their main problem is not demand but supply.
In the same way, Dhoomimal Gallery, India’s oldest commercial space, said it would show major works by Sadanand Bakre, and J. Swaminathan is going to give a speech. The sale of Swaminathan, in particular, teaches us a lot. His Bird, Mountain, and Tree series has gone from being a niche interest to a “must-have” for large Modernist collections. The gallery also had a piece of art by S.H. Raza, and Ram Kumar was in charge of keeping the core members’ money flowing.
A Look at Krishen Khanna’s Centenary Effect
One of the most interesting things that happened at Art Mumbai in the 2025 fiscal year was Krishen Khanna’s meteoric rise to fame. When Khanna turned 100, his market went through a big change in value. According to the Hurun India Art List 2025, he is the second richest living Indian artist, with a total turnover of Rs 43.1 crore, a 140% increase from the previous year.
The fair had a “Centenary Effect” that you could feel. Khanna’s work was shown at galleries like Akar Prakar and Black Cube because more institutions were interested in it. Because the centennial leads to museum retrospectives and academic publications that confirm the artist’s place in history, collectors are willing to pay high prices. Khanna’s biblical stories and the “Bandwallah” series were once thought to be less commercially viable than Raza’s Bindus or Husain’s Horses. Now, they are seen as important works of modernist literature.
A Look Back at Tyeb Mehta’s Institutional Base
The 2025 edition’s non-commercial exhibitions, which were a big part of it, helped businesses feel more confident. The Kiran Nadar Museum of Art (KNMA), in collaboration with the Tyeb Mehta Foundation and Saffronart, put on the groundbreaking solo exhibition “Bearing Weight (with the Lightness of Being)” by Tyeb Mehta at the fair.
Even though these specific pieces were probably not for sale (they were loans from institutions), having such a well-known retrospective at the fairgrounds was a great way to set a price. Mehta was the first modern Indian artist to sell for more than $1 million at auction. This made collectors remember how the value of Indian art has gone up and down over the years. This “halo effect” helped galleries that sold works by Mehta’s contemporaries. A collector who sees a museum-quality Mehta is more likely to buy a work by one of his peers, like Akbar Padamsee or V.S. Gaitonde, if it is available at nearby commercial booths.
Expanding the Canon: Indigenous Modernism
An interesting sub-trend in the Moderns section was that indigenous and folk art did very well when it was put in a modernist context. The Crites Collection and ICA Gallery said they sold 80% of their booth, and more than half of the sales were to people from other countries.
This means that the definition of “Indian Modernism” should be expanded to include vernacular traditions like Gond, Warli, and Madhubani when they are shown with a lot of care. The success of Ojas Art, which sold 90% of its booth focusing on similar genres, shows that collectors are starting to see these works as “indigenous contemporary art” instead of “craft.” This is similar to the Aboriginal art market in Australia. This area has lower prices but higher aesthetic value, making it appealing to both new collectors and international buyers who want “Indian” styles that are different from the Eurocentric styles of the Progressives.
The Paradox of Affordability
The Moderns brought in the money, and the Contemporary section added to the volume. Prices for modern masterpieces have skyrocketed to Rs 10 crore to Rs 50 crore, creating an “affordability paradox.” Now, even established blue-chip names in contemporary art seem relatively cheap.
Aparajita Jain, a partner at Nature Morte, put it perfectly when she said that “contemporary art looks much more affordable” because modern prices have gone through the roof. A collector who can’t afford to buy modern art sees a Rs 2.5 crore sculpture by a contemporary giant as a good deal. This relative value caused a lot of activity in the modern halls.
Nature Morte, a bellwether for the modern art world, was a good example of this trend. The gallery said that by the end of the VIP preview day, it had sold about 90% of its stand. The most important thing they sold was a new steel tong sculpture by Subodh Gupta for $300,000 (about Rs 2.5 crore).
The fact that the buyer of the Gupta work is a collector from Ahmedabad is very important. It shows how wealth is spread out in India. The buyer was not a traditionalist from Mumbai or a bureaucrat from Delhi. Instead, they were a representative of the mercantile wealth from Tier-2 cities (though Ahmedabad is arguably Tier-1 in wealth) who are now entering the high-stakes art market.
Nature Morte also successfully put works by Asim Waqif, Tanya Goel, and Raghav Babbar in museums and other institutions. The placement of Raghav Babbar is especially interesting. Babbar is only 27 years old, but he has quickly risen to the top of the market, coming in 8th on the Hurun list with sales of Rs 12 crore. His meteoric rise shows that there is a speculative edge in the market, where young figurines are selling for prices that were once only available to mid-career veterans.
The Vadehra Art Gallery (VAG) had the same level of success, selling 90% of its booth. VAG’s plan to mix big names like A. Ramachandran with more modern voices kept the business going. Ramachandran, with modern voices, made sure there was always a steady flow of customers. The sale of A. Ramachandran’s work is important because it connects the past and the present. His detailed, myth-filled visual language appeals to the same people who buy traditional Indian miniatures, but it also works on a huge, modern scale.
Tarq and Chemould are the mid-market drivers.
The performance of galleries like Tarq and Chemould Prescott Road showed that the middle market was strong.
Tarq, renowned for its assistance in launching new artists, sold 90% of its booth. This shows that “Young Collectors” are a very healthy group of people—professionals in their 30s and 40s who have extra money to spend between Rs 2 Lakh and Rs 20 Lakh. These buyers care less about “investment returns” and more about how the art looks, how it tells a story, and how it fits into their lives.
Chemould Prescott Road, which is one of Mumbai’s oldest galleries, moved at least 75% of its stand on the first day. They can show both heritage artists and cutting-edge contemporary works, like N.S. Harsha or Shilpa Gupta, which lets them reach a wide range of customers.
Chatterjee & Lal sold about 80% of its works, and their booth was more focused on the mind and history. Collectors who wanted more than just decoration liked how they showed off Nikhil Chopra’s performance-based paintings and Gagan Singh’s intimate ink drawings. The fact that Gagan Singh’s small-format works were sold shows that the market for paper works is still a good place for new buyers to start.
The “Sold Out” Thing
Several booths reached the highly sought-after “Sold Out” status, which means that their curation and pricing were just right.
All of Tarik Currimbhoy’s kinetic sculptures sold out at Akara Contemporary. Currimbhoy’s work sits at the intersection of architecture, design, and fine art. His kinetic steel and stone pieces are visually stunning and, most importantly, fit in well with the look of modern luxury apartments. The “sold out” status indicates that there was a frenzy of collectors attempting to acquire the works before the edition run ended.
Ojas Art also said they were almost sold out (90%), which fits with the trend that curated displays with a strong, consistent voice (in their case, indigenous art) do better than “supermarket”-style booths that show a mix of items.
The Strategic Opening of Lisson Gallery
The first time Lisson Gallery, a major player in the art world with locations in London, New York, and Shanghai, took part in Art Mumbai 2025 was a turning point. Their presence at the Mumbai fair circuit is a sign of geopolitical change: as the Chinese market cools, Western blue-chip galleries are turning to India as the next place to grow.
Lisson’s booth was a great example of how to calibrate a market. They didn’t get rid of inventory that didn’t sell in Basel; instead, they brought works that were made just for Indian tastes.
Anish Kapoor: Kapoor is the perfect “bridge” artist because he is a British-Indian sculptor. He stayed the best-selling Indian artist in the world, making Rs 44 crore. Lisson showed off his signature concave mirror work, “Organic Green Black mix to Cobalt Blue” (2017).
The gallery also showed work by Colombian textile artist Olga de Amaral, taking advantage of India’s strong cultural ties to weaving and gold. People who knew about India’s rich textile history liked her work Dos partículas II (2015), a diptych made of gold leaf and linen.
Results: Lisson said that they had “strong sales” to new customers in India. This is the most important number. It shows that the Indian market isn’t just a closed loop of people buying and selling art from India; there is a real demand and money for international blue-chip art as long as it has cultural significance.
The Diaspora Link
The fair was also a homecoming for galleries that focus on the diaspora. AICON Contemporary in New York and Grosvenor Gallery in London were very important in bringing art back to India. These galleries had already placed works with Indian institutions in the past, and they did the same thing in 2025. Grosvenor said it had made sales to new Indian customers, which increased the flow of goods across borders. These galleries act as middlemen, buying works by Indian modernists in the West (from estates of old British collectors) and selling them back to the Indian market, where prices are higher.
Ben Brown Fine Arts expanded the market’s interest in the West by showcasing works by Andy Warhol and Damien Hirst, as well as Robert Indiana’s famous LOVE sculpture. Even though there isn’t as much information available about sales of the Hirst and Warhol works, their presence serves a branding purpose by raising the fair’s visual hierarchy to match global standards like Art Dubai or Frieze.
The Sculpture Park: Fixing the Gender Gap
Art Mumbai 2025 made a statement by only letting women sculptors work in its outdoor Sculpture Park. This was not just a symbolic act; it was a correction in the market. In India, sculpture has mostly been a male-dominated field (Ramkinkar Baij, Sankho Chaudhuri), and it has fallen behind painting in terms of sales because it’s hard to store and display in Mumbai’s small apartments.
But the growth of luxury real estate—villas in Alibaug, farmhouses in Delhi, and large corporate campuses—has made room for monumental art. The sales of large works by Reena Saini Kallat, Bharti Kher, and Shilpa Gupta in the park show that collectors are now buying for these new spaces. The “women-only” focus also played into the global institutional priority of getting female artists, making it a “must-buy” for collectors who want to stay culturally relevant.
Digital and New Media: A “Phygital” Change
The global NFT craze has died down, but Art Mumbai 2025 showed that the “phygital” (physical + digital) market has grown up. Pure screen-based art is still a small market, but hybrid art is becoming more popular.
Valay Shende made a sculpture that combined VR and real life. It was a metal lion with a VR headset that took people to a digital forest. This piece, which was shown at the opening of NewArtX (India’s first digital art gallery in Worli), shows what the future of the medium will look like in India: it is based on physical craftsmanship (the metal sculpture) but also uses digital storytelling to add to it.
Galleries like Chemould CoLab and Experimenter kept pushing the limits of new media. The sale of Tanya Goel’s complicated, algorithm-influenced abstractions (which are placed with institutions) connects traditional painting with digital logic.
The “Young Collector” Movement
The rise of the Millennial and Gen-Z collector (ages 25 to 40) was a major demographic change at Art Mumbai 2025. This group buys things to build their identity, not to keep their investments safe like “Old Money” does. Instagram and trends from around the world have a big effect on them.
Buying Habits: They made up most of the sales at galleries like Tarq, Art and Charlie, and Method, buying works that cost between Rs 1 lakh and Rs 10 lakh.
Taste: They like figurative painting, political themes, and “cool” things more than the abstract spiritualism of the Raza/Soza era. They are also the main people who will buy the “affordable contemporary” works that Nature Morte talks about.
Support from businesses and organizations
A lot of corporate partners helped the fair’s ecosystem grow. Sponsors like Birla Opus Paints (Presenting Partner), 360 One (Wealth Management), and Soho House (Hospitality) gave the event the money it needed to have big plans.
360 One is a wealth management company, so their partnership makes sense. It tells their UHNWI clients that art is a real asset class that they should pay attention to.
The fact that KNMA (Kiran Nadar), MAP (Museum of Art & Photography, Bangalore), and the Saffronart Foundation were all active buyers changed the way sales worked. When an institution buys a piece of art (like KNMA did with Akar Prakar’s work in the past), it indicates that the artist’s price is fair. Institutional approval significantly aided gallerists in closing sales.
The conclusion of Art Mumbai 2025 marked not only a successful event but also a significant milestone in the Indian art market. The numbers—Rs 310 crore in total sales for the best artists, 26,000 visitors, and many reports of sell-outs—show that the market has reached a critical mass.
The fair has made it through the “sophomore slump” (in its third year) and created a unique identity. The “Old Guard” (Moderns) is being re-evaluated at global price levels in the marketplace, and a growing number of collectors are aggressively buying the “New Guard” (Contemporary). The fact that international galleries like Lisson can successfully join the market shows that it is open and works around the world.
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