Himmat Shah’s market has continued to gather strength through a body of work that balances material experimentation with sculptural restraint. His five highest-selling lots between 2021 and 2025 show just how strongly collectors respond to that language.

Leading the list is Untitled (Christ) (Ed: 2-5), which sold for ₹1,01,67,601 ($115,540). As his top-performing auction lot, it captures the appeal of Shah’s ability to distil presence into a pared-down sculptural vocabulary.

Anyone who knows of Kavita Singh knows she is all about elegance and confidence. A veteran designer, passionate art collector, and former model, Singh’s eye for style is unmatched. When it comes down to it, she believes that a house without art has no soul. “Without art, it’s just empty rooms,” she says, adding, “Art becomes part of the overall vibe, so it’s very much an essential aspect of decorating a home.”

Does her personal sense of style—layered and nuanced—influence the kind of art she acquires? It’s a 50:50. Mostly, she acquires what she likes. She says, “I just have an eye for it, but that’s something that I’ve picked up over the years. It’s not consciously done, just something that comes to me.”

Singh is of the belief that in any house, or on anybody for that matter, a colour should not scream—everything should be in harmony. “Everything that you see in my house just blends into each other,” she says. Of the artists that she holds dear in her celebrated collection, Raja Ravi Varma has had the strongest impact on her. “I love Ravi Varma’s works because I like the detailing, and how emotions show through his subject’s eyes. You can see every little detail in a Ravi Varma artwork—you see the nails, the hair—it’s very minutely done. That is what I always marvel at, how this artist could have done all this, and how real the artworks seem.”

Whether it’s high jewellery or paintings, objects with a hefty price tag are rarely just expenses; they are assets that tend to appreciate over time. Does Singh ever think about an artist’s or artwork’s investment potential?

Read the full story in the premiere issue of LuxeTrope, on stands now.

S.H. Raza’s auction market thrives on volume as much as value, with a steady stream of works finding buyers year after year. Between 2021 and 2025, a total of 567 lots were sold, reflecting broad accessibility and reliable demand across his diverse output.

The annual numbers tell a story of consistency with upward momentum: 87 lots in 2021, 93 in 2022, peaking at 136 in 2023, rising to 146 in 2024, and settling to 105 in 2025. This flow keeps his market active, drawing collectors at every level.

The top lots from Giftex’s Modern and Contemporary Art Auction (26–27 April 2026) collectively underscored a market that is not only buoyant but also evolving in sophistication and depth. Exceptional results for artists such as Jitish Kallat, Sakti Burman, Badri Narayan, A. A. Raiba, Arpana Caur, K. Laxma Goud, T. Vaikuntam, G. R. Iranna, and Krishen Khanna reveal a clear pattern of works dramatically exceeding estimates, in some cases by several multiples. 

Legendary cultural icon M.F. Husain occupies a singular position in the realm of Indian art. In fact, if one observes closely, few artists across the world have left a legacy as complex and resilient as Husain. Even in terms of the market, his presence has not only endured but has significantly intensified, revealing how cultural capital, controversy and craftsmanship converge in the business of art.

Husain’s market performance over the last few years has been nothing short of emphatic, and the numbers speak for themselves, reflecting consistent and significant growth. For instance, the revenue generated from his works in the last five years has continually risen. The annual turnover at auction, which stood at ₹73.75 crore ($8.38 million) in 2021, grew to an astounding ₹412.28 crore ($46.85 million) in 2025. What makes this more interesting is that the number of lots offered did not see such a drastic change, remaining around 150 and 200 each year. Moreover, between 2021 and 2025, 209 works were sold in the ₹1 to ₹10 crore price bracket, while six lots breached the ₹10 crore ($1.14 million) mark.

What is striking is not just the scale of the numbers, but their trajectory. An analysis of the last two years perfectly illustrates how much the market for Husain is thriving. In 2024, the sale of 209 works generated a total turnover of ₹170.51 crore ($19.38 million). The most expensive work sold that year was Untitled (Reincarnation), which was sold for $3.22 million (₹28.3 crore) at auction. These results positioned Husain in the second spot in the list of Indian Modernists in terms of turnover in 2024. Within the span of merely a year, the total turnover more than doubled to ₹412.28 crore ($46.85 million), pushing him to the top of the chart.

Read the full story in the premiere issue of LuxeTrope, on stands now.

Art often holds the dual weight of history and introspection, mirroring both a changing world and the inner lives of those who inhabit it. In March 2026, an AstaGuru auction crystallised this truth, bringing together pivotal works and setting new benchmarks for artists such as Nandalal Bose, Ramkinkar Baij, Bikash Bhattacharjee and others.

The auction’s most significant result was Ramkinkar Baij’s sculpture Father & Son, a powerful cement cast that weaves together themes of the dignity of labour, rhythmic movement and generational bonds through his distinct, rough-hewn Modernist language. The work realised ₹6.42 crore underscoring Baij’s status as a pillar of Indian sculpture.

In November 2024, a crypto billionaire named Justin Sun paid $6.2 million (₹54.56 crore) for Maurizio Cattelan’s provocative work—a duct-taped banana—titled Comedian. A few days later, Sun famously ate the banana in front of the media. While the world debated the absurdity of it all, experts and specialists saw a much deeper narrative at play, the intersection of traditional art, internet memes, and the rising influence of digital native wealth. According to the Artprice Contemporary Art Market Report 2025, this is the new reality of a “transvertical” market where barriers between mediums, periods, and even asset classes are rapidly dissolving. In fact, many are calling it “a new reality.”

In 2025, the global art world navigated—and continues to—what is described as a “transforming market” rather than a “shrinking” one. The overarching data from the Art Basel & UBS Global Art Market 2026 report and the Deloitte-ArtTactic Art & Finance Report 2025 describes an ecosystem undergoing a profound structural recalibration. While aggregate global sales fell by 12 per cent in 2024 to an estimated $57.5 billion (₹5.06 lakh crore), the underlying frequency of transactions reached a historic peak of 146,000 lots. It seems the global art market is moving away from a top-heavy structure that’s reliant on a few blue-chip trophies to a broader, higher volume-based market where new collectors—loaded with rising wealth—will play a big role.

Suryakant Lokhande’s auction story from 2021 to 2025 is defined by a steady rise in volume. Across the five-year span, he sold 31 lots at auction.

The yearly count moved from 3 lots in 2021 to 6 in 2022, then climbed to 10 in 2023 and 11 in 2024.