Top Indian Artists' Works Fetch Rs 310 Cr In A Year, Up 3 Pc: Report

Amounts fetched by the sale of the work by top-50 Indian artists alive rose by a moderate 3 per cent to Rs 310 crore in the year, a report said on Wednesday. Anish Kapoor retained his tag as the top selling Indian artist with cumulative sales of Rs 44 crore of his works at auctions, Hurun India Art List 2025 said.

Centenarian Krishen Khanna stormed into the second position with a cumulative turnover of Rs 43.1 crore, up by 140 per cent on-year, the report said. For a single work, Sakthi Burman topped with an artwork getting sold at Rs 12.94 crore, the annual list said, adding that it has data on public auctions as of January 1, 2025.

The top-10 list had new entrants with high growth including Manu Parekh at Rs 9.5 crore, up 134 per cent on-year, Anjolie Ela Menon at Rs 8.7 crore, up by 134 per cent, and Laxma Goud at Rs 7.8 crore, up 44 per cent. The total number of lots sold this year was 995, a 26 per cent increase over the 789 lot sales in previous year, it said, adding that 58 per cent of the sales were of top-10 artists.

Top auction house was Astaguru in Mumbai, which sold the largest number of lots selling 22 art works. New Delhi is the preferred residence for most of India's top artists, solidifying its status as the country's premier hub for art and creativity, as per the list. Ten of the 50 artists on the list, including Jitish Kallat, Manu Parekh, and Nalini Malani, are graduates of the J J School of Art in the financial capital. "Institutions such as Sir J.J. School of Art and Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda continue to shape India's artistic landscape," Hurun India's founder and chief researcher Anas Rahman Junaid said.