India's art market has grown nearly 200-fold in 25 years, fuelled by record-breaking auctions and rising collector confidence
10 Record-Breakers at AstaGuru’s Collectors’ Choice Auction
These artists established new auction records, with bidding pushing several works well beyond their estimates and previous market highs
AstaGuru’s Collectors’ Choice auction (June 22-23, 2026) proved to be a landmark sale, with 10 artists setting new auction benchmarks. The record-breakers ranged from celebrated Modernists such as B. Prabha and K.G. Subramanyan to sculptors like Dhanraj Bhagat and Sarbari Roy Chowdhury, as well as Contemporary artists including Anupam Sud and C.D. Mistry. Several of these works significantly outperformed their estimates, highlighting strong bidding across multiple segments of the Indian art market.
The highest-valued new record belonged to K.G. Subramanyan, whose Figures With Mystical Birds (Diptych) realised ₹2.80 crore, narrowly surpassing his previous auction high. Close behind was Dhanraj Bhagat’s monumental concrete sculpture Standing Figure, which achieved ₹2.66 crore, establishing a new benchmark for the sculptor. B. Prabha also joined the list with Untitled (Potter Women) selling for ₹2.20 crore, comfortably eclipsing her previous record and continuing the strong market momentum for the artist’s distinctive portrayals of rural women.
Among the sale’s biggest surprises was Laxman Shrestha’s Untitled, which climbed from an estimate of ₹15–20 lakh to realise ₹1.01 crore, making it one of the auction’s strongest performances relative to estimate. Senaka Senanayake’s Sisters Of The Sun also crossed the crore mark at ₹1.46 crore, comfortably surpassing both its estimate and the artist’s previous auction record. Meanwhile, Anupam Sud’s A Veil Of Vice And Virture achieved ₹60.90 lakh against an estimate of ₹10–15 lakh, setting a new personal auction record and recording one of the largest estimate-to-price multiples among the record breakers.
The auction also produced new benchmarks for several artists whose markets have steadily developed in recent years. C.D. Mistry’s Beyond Control realised ₹48.40 lakh, establishing a new auction high for the artist. Niren Sengupta’s large-scale Celebration (Diptych) reached ₹39.93 lakh, while sculptor Sarbari Roy Chowdhury’s bronze Standing Woman (Ed: 2/9) sold for ₹21.96 lakh, nearly three times its upper estimate. Vidya Bhushan completed the list as Still Life With Blue Drape fetched ₹20.75 lakh, setting the highest auction price for the artist.
Taken together, these ten new auction records were one of the defining features of AstaGuru’s June Collectors’ Choice sale. The results spanned paintings and sculpture, artists from different generations, and works ranging from the mid-twentieth century to contemporary practice. While several records were set by artists with well-established markets, others came from names that have historically appeared less frequently at auction, reflecting the broad range of collecting interests evident throughout the sale.
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