He declines to identify which artists he thinks will make it big in the future but underscores the fact that it would behove any modern artist to pay attention to their Indian heritage over the last 70 years and capture that in their work. As example, in India, M.F. Husain exemplified that with work that ranged from Mother Teresa to Madhuri Dixit in his lifetime. Across the world, in America, Andy Warhol did the same with everything from Marilyn Monroe to Campbell’s soup cans in his bid to encapsulate a slice of Americana in all his works.

There are several factors that drive the prices of art throughout the world. “When serious collectors show interest in a particular art style of the artist, a particular series of an artist, it plays a role in the pricing of the art,” says award-winning artist Paresh Maity, whom critics refer to as India’s best water colourist.

Does that mean consumers in India are only content with “pretty art” to adorn their homes? “In order to have a relevant presence in the art market, it ultimately has to be a serious piece of art. Art which is technically strong as well as aesthetically sound and conceptually powerful will always be in demand,” says Maity.

Adarsh Saran, art aficionado and one of the earlier collectors of Indian art, goes on to say that there’s always been room for serious art. “With the advent of European influenced art of recording ethnic tribes, flora, and fauna through Indian Masters (Impey Collection) that caught on in 1750s through the1900s, to the Company School recording local festivals and scenes and social lives of the ‘locals’, there were collections but mostly with British ruling classes, being auctioned in London,” Saran says. “With the onset of the Bengal School inspired by Tagore-Santiniketan and Progressive Artists’ Group in Bombay, collections started being built by rich Indian business houses—predominately the Parsis in Bombay and Marwaris all over India.”

Serious art as a class resided in institutes and libraries, but the crossover started, particularly as many artists travelled out to Europe and started residing there. Artists like Paritosh Sen, Gopal Ghose, Jamini Roy, and F.N. Souza made Europe their principal and injected influences in their work and what followed later was the recognition of masters like Tyeb Mehta, V.S. Gaitonde, Ram Kumar, and Amrita Sher-Gil, Saran says.

Raja Ravi Varma

Finding India’s next million-dollar artist