India’s High-Profile Collectors Champion Accessibility and Engagement in Sharing Their Art Holdings

India has often been viewed as primarily an ancient nation, with considerations of a fertile culture focusing on antiquities more than the contemporary. This is true of museums and art galleries both within the country and in the international sphere—as seen in historic and traditional shows such as “Indian Skies: The Howard Hodgkin Collection of Indian Court Painting” and “Tree & Serpent: Early Buddhist Art in India, 200 BCE–400 CE” at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

With India’s art ecosystems entering a boom, though, more contemporary voices are finally taking center stage at home. Art fairs, biennials, and new art spaces are cropping up all over the country. Spearheading this change are some of the foremost collectors in India, who are reinterpreting their private collections into publicly accessible institutions.

Kiran Nadar, one of India’s leading contemporary art collectors, is famed for a voracious art appetite she sates by chasing down artworks across the globe and surveying local art scenes for undiscovered and forgotten gems. Nadar is also an acclaimed international bridge player, an Asian Games medalist, and a recipient of the Padma Shri—one of India’s highest civilian recognitions—for her contributions to the preservation of Indian arts and cultural heritage.

She is also a trustee of the Shiv Nadar Foundation, an educational enterprise started by her husband, Shiv Nadar, who is the founder and chairman emeritus of HCL Technologies, a multinational information technology consulting company. According to the Forbes World’s Billionaires List of 2024, he is the fourth-richest Indian, with an estimated net worth of $35.6 billion.

Kiran Nadar says that art appreciation has always been a part of her life, thanks to her mother. “She would take me to museums whenever she could, and I have such fond memories of exploring those incredible spaces,” she told ARTnews. “Seeing the vast collections at MoMA, the Louvre, the V&A, and the Guggenheim during holidays was truly inspiring. By the time I started decorating my new home in 1989, I already had a good sense of what kind of art resonated with me.” 

There were no baby steps involved in the start of Nadar’s collection. Her first purchase was a bold and graphic depiction of a male nude, Rameshwar Broota’s Runners (1982), which still hangs proudly in her Delhi home. Paintings by M.F. Husain and Manjit Bawa count among her other initial purchases. As her collection grew, she wanted to share works with the public rather than keep them stored away, so she set up India’s first philanthropic private museum, the Kiran Nadar Museum of Art (KNMA), in Noida, an industrial hub and a satellite city of Delhi, in 2010. The next year, she expanded it to a second location in Saket, the mall capital of Delhi city, with the first retrospective of the late artist Nasreen Mohamedi. That marked the start of Mohamedi’s global recognition, which was later taken up by a high-profile exhibition at the Met Breuer in New York.

KNMA is once again set to expand, with a new campus under construction on a 1-million-square-foot site in Delhi. Designed by architecture firm Adjaye Associates, the new iteration, expected to open by 2027, will be India’s largest art and culture center. The Saket museum will also be transformed into a residency that supports alternative projects and practices and houses a library. 

Nadar—whose collection currently boasts more than 13,000 works by important artists including Raja Ravi Varma, S.H. Raza, and F.N. Souza—said that collecting art is a constant process of chasing certain treasures. She also admits to never forgetting a work that slips away. “I vividly recall a moment in 2008, when Christie’s offered M.F. Husain’s Battle of Ganga and Jamuna (1971–72) at auction,” she said. “The whole catalog had some exceptional works, and I was focused on some other lots in that sale. So, while I bid on [those], it got away from me. Years later, it reappeared on the market, and I seized the opportunity and brought it to the collection. This chase is constant and adds to the excitement of collecting.” 

Tackling Logistics

Another significant Indian art and cultural venue is the Nita Mukesh Ambani Cultural Centre (NMACC), now in its second year of operation as a passion project of Nita Ambani, founder and chairperson of Reliance Foundation, the nonprofit arm of India’s largest private sector company, Reliance Industries. Founded by her father-in-law, Dhirubhai Ambani, Reliance Industries has interests in energy, retail, telecommunications, and other digital services. Nita’s husband, Mukesh Ambani, the company’s chairman and managing director, is ranked as the ninth-richest man in the world according to Forbes, with a net worth of $116.6 billion. 

The Ambanis own the Indian Premier League cricket team, the Mumbai Indians, and organize the Indian Super League, the country’s top domestic football league. They were also in the media spotlight for much of 2024 around the extravagant wedding of their youngest son, Anant Ambani. The nuptials are estimated to have cost over $600 million.

A patron of traditional Indian visual and cultural arts, Nita Ambani has been on the board of trustees of the Met Museum since 2019. She has said that her fascination with art stems from temple visits with her mother, during which she marveled at the murals made by religious devotees. For her, devotion and art are connected, and her collection and sponsorships around the art world center largely on depictions of the Hindu god Krishna. 

Ambani’s collection consists mostly of traditional Indian arts, like a 56-foot-tall Pichwai painting—a 400-year-old devotional art form from Nathdwara, in Rajasthan, primarily featuring the life and teachings of Krishna—titled Kamal Kunj (2019–20), by Raghunandan Sharma and Nathdwara artists. This is a love she shares with her mother-in-law, the family matriarch, Kokilaben Ambani, who herself commissioned immersive digital Pichwai artworks of God Srinath and Goddess Laxmi for her 90th birthday this year. 

The famed Ambani residence, Antilia, is home to a slew of such traditional pieces, but Nita’s collection also boasts contemporary works. A Robert Indiana LOVE sculpture adorns her front porch, and the living space features a head sculpture by Ravinder Reddy. Other works in her assemblage include a large-scale painting by F.N. Souza, an installation by Subodh Gupta, and a sculpture by Bharti Kher.

During the initial phases of building NMACC, Ambani visited the Art Institute of Chicago for a Krishna and Pichwai exhibition she sponsored and, seeing their advanced climate-control systems and professional displays, came to realize India’s comparative shortcomings in art infrastructure. That led to the beginnings of Art House, NMACC’s dedicated visual arts gallery. Her daughter, Isha Ambani Piramal, being an art aficionado herself, quickly joined hands with her mother in the venture and took the lead for the gallery. Ambani credits her daughter as her guide to contemporary art.

Setting up Art House, however, proved challenging for Piramal. She quickly realized that many of the world’s top museums did not want to send their most important traveling shows to India, which was desperately lacking in exhibition halls with load-bearing floors that could accommodate valuable large-scale art. Galleries that ensure state-of-the-art security and climate-control technologies were also few and far between. Concerns of this sort led to the building of the 16,000-square-foot, four-story, Kunsthalle-style gallery that Art House is today.

Piramal is a billionaire heiress and director of Reliance Retail, India’s largest retailer. She is married to Anand Piramal, executive director of Piramal Industries, one of India’s leading financial service empires, and a stakeholder in real estate and health care. His parents, Ajay and Swati Piramal, are prominent players in the art world, with a sizable private collection of their own. They are also the founders of the Piramal Museum of Art (PMA) in Mumbai.

Isha Piramal’s purchases primarily focus on Indian women artists like Bharti Kher, Rithika Merchant, and Rana Begum. But some of her most treasured works are a 2013 Tracey Emin neon sculpture When I Hold You, I Hold Your Heart (a graduation gift from her mother) and an abstract work by Jennifer Guidi (a wedding gift from her husband). Her gallery displays at Art House include Yayomi Kusama’s Clouds (2019), N.S. Harsha’s Seekers Paradise (2021), Jitish Kallat’s Here After Here After Here (2012–15), and other works from the Ambani and Piramal private collections.

Women Inspiring Women

Unlike many parts of the world where men predominate among art collectors, India has always had women who lead the way. For some Indian female collectors—like Nadar, Ambani, and Piramal, as well as others including Amrita Jhaveri, Sree Banerjee Goswami, and Sangeeta Chopra—inspiration cycling between mothers and daughters can seem like the norm.

Philanthropist and collector Sangita Jindal was initiated into the arts by her mother, Urmila Kanoria, who founded Kanoria Centre for Arts in Ahmedabad. “Her dedication to art and architecture gave me the impetus as a young girl to cultivate a taste for modern and contemporary art,” said Jindal, who founded her own Jindal Arts Creative Interaction Centre in 1994.

Art was her way of building her family legacy at a time when women were discouraged from entering the family business. “A legacy is built steadily over time, and it is collectively built by many people,” she said. “I believe that women contribute substantially to the creation of wealth—complementarily with men. Women lead in various ways, and they take on responsibilities that are not always celebrated in monetary terms.” 

Jindal is the president of Art India magazine and the chairperson of JSW Foundation, the social development arm of JSW Group. Led by her husband, Sajjan Jindal, JSW operates in the steel, energy, infrastructure, and automotive sectors and is part of the larger family business empire, O.P. Jindal Group, which was founded by Sajjan Jindal’s father, Om Prakash Jindal. Sajjan Jindal’s mother, Savitri Jindal, is currently the chairperson emerita of the O.P. Jindal Group and is India’s richest woman, with an estimated net worth of $35.5 billion, according to the Forbes 2024 list. Savitri Jindal has also served as a cabinet minister for the state of Haryana.

Sangita Jindal’s latest venture is Hampi Art Labs, an arts center offering residencies that she cofounded with her daughter Tarini Jindal Handa. “Hampi Art Labs is a way of creating a safe space for experimenting with art and ideas,” Sangita Jindal said. “We do not have too many such avenues in South Asia, where artists can mull over thoughts, pick up strains slowly, and discuss possibilities with other artists, curators, and thinkers. If India is to become an art powerhouse in the future, we need to have centers that enable and encourage creativity in different modes.” 

A Bid for Democratization

While the West has a long history of museum culture, with children growing up with museum visits as part of their school curriculum, the concept is still an emerging one in many parts of India, where museum attendance is notably low compared to many other countries. Kiran Nadar described driving traffic to museums and finding ways to turn visitors into active participants as a constant challenge. “It has taken time to identify what works and what doesn’t, and we continue to learn and adapt,” she said of her efforts, which include school tours, workshops, and education programs at her namesake museum spaces in Noida and Saket. “However, the most fulfilling aspect of this is seeing people from different backgrounds and ages visiting the museum, participating in our programming, and appreciating art. It brings me immense joy to know that we are playing a part in democratizing art in India, transforming it into a shared cultural experience rather than an exclusive privilege.”

Sangita Jindal shares this passion for art education with Nadar. Hampi Art Labs organizes learning activities and workshops for schools and local community engagement with artists-in residence, such as a community ceramics workshop for Sandur Collective artisans. The Jindals also offer an Art India online education program, a learning platform for art and art history. “I have always felt that we need vibrant institutional presences to foster a robust art environment,” Jindal said. “Yes, private collections are important, but tell me: What is the use if we lack in public art initiatives?” 

The Nita Mukesh Ambani Cultural Centre too has reiterated its interest in democratizing arts since its inception. Both Ambani and Piramal insist the purpose of the center’s gallery, Art House, is to welcome non-museumgoing audiences into the art sphere. It stays open late—until 7:30pm on weekdays and 10 on weekends—to encourage greater accessibility. And with its location within one of India’s biggest luxury shopping malls, Art House has the unique advantage of drawing in consumers of luxury goods and thereby encouraging new art appreciation—and even, possibly, as Piramal hopes, new local collectors.

One of the most celebrated exhibitions at the NMACC was India’s first American Pop art show, “Pop: Fame, Love, Power.” The 2023 show featured 12 artists, including Robert Rauschenberg, Ed Ruscha, and Andy Warhol, and played to populist sensibilities by taking advantage of Indian audiences’ affinity for Pop art and globally familiar names. The more recent immersive contemporary Indian art exhibition “Liminal Gaps” was designed to appeal to larger audiences with the Instagrammable aesthetics of Ayesha Singh’s striking black-and-white “Hybrid Drawings” (2015–ongoing) and Asim Waqif’s playful bamboo sculpture Chaal (2024), as well as programs like a digital art treasure hunt. The show also featured works by Raqs Media Collective and Afrah Shafiq, along with movement-based interventions by the Nairobian performance artist Brendan Fernandes. 

Democratization and increased public awareness have their downsides too. Nadar’s KNMA found itself on the receiving end of controversy last year after it terminated a researcher, allegedly over a Facebook post that criticized Nadar’s support for perceived propaganda events organized by India’s central government. The post referenced the contentious exhibition “Jana Shakti,” which celebrated the completion of 100 episodes of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s monthly radio broadcast. Nadar was an adviser for the show, held at the National Gallery of Modern Art, Delhi, and news of the termination was followed by demands from the art community for the researcher’s reinstatement, as well as appeals for private museums to function more in the interest of public good than as private domains of the elite. The incident certainly raised questions around public access and public accountability in the Indian art world. (Nadar declined to address the situation when asked by ARTnews.)

Young Collectors Seek New Avenues

Industry experts, including Christie’s Asia Pacific president Francis Belin; Ashish Anand, CEO and managing director of the gallery DAG; and Tushar Sethi, CEO of the Mumbai-based auction house AstaGuru, have pointed to a recent surge in first-time buyers and new art collectors, fueled in part by rising disposable incomes and an interest in alternative investments that hedge against inflation. The India Art Fair’s Young Collectors’ Program, which primarily focuses on those starting out on their collecting journeys, reported that it had one of its most successful editions this year. Enhanced accessibility through online art marketplaces and the increasing presence of galleries, even in smaller cities like Kochi, Jaipur, and Ahmedabad, are also encouraging more young people to enter the art market. 

According to the 2024 Hurun India Art List, released by the Hurun Research Institute and based on auction records from the online database ArtPrice.com, sales by the top 50 artists in India reached a record $35 million, with a 19 percent increase from the year before. Auction houses are aggressively pushing sales, with a 59 percent increase since 2021 in total lots sold, and a 124 percent increase in average price per lot. 

Bhavna Kakar, founder and director of Latitude 28 gallery in New Delhi, noted an increase in younger collectors who are not as focused on purchasing only established names. Unlike previous generations, they are also not as influenced by auction trends as are their older peers. “This new generation, aged 22 to 30, is well traveled and exposed to museums, exhibitions, and biennials worldwide,” Kakar said. “They are comfortable purchasing art online, even from non-mainstream websites. Among the nouveau elite, interior designers and architects are significantly influencing art purchases.”

Vidya Shivadas, director of the Foundation for Indian Contemporary Art, also pointed out this trend during India Art Fair 2024. “There are a lot of young artists, especially in places like Delhi and Mumbai, opening up their own studios and having as much of a vibrant art scene in their own homes and creating a kind of conversation and a coming together as in any other big public institution,” she said. 

Reflecting the rising demand for new names, artists Thota Vaikuntam and Paresh Maity replaced previously leading artists Anju Dodiya and Subodh Gupta in the top 10 in sales value in the Hurun India Art List for the first time. Vaikuntam, known for his paintings of rural life in Telangana, saw a 292 percent rise in sales value, whereas Maity, a prolific painter renowned for his constantly evolving and innovative practice, saw a 226 percent increase in sales. Other artists projected to be frontrunners in India’s art scene include Gulam Rasool Santosh, Ganesh Haloi, Manoj Dutta, and Neeraj Goswami. Industry experts have noted a growing interest among millennial buyers in video art, despite the medium still being in its nascent stages in India and nostalgia for a pre-partition and
pre-urbanization India.

However, Kakar points out, the shift to online markets also brings challenges. Buyers are less driven to galleries, since they can easily view and purchase art online. “A decade ago, Indian galleries experienced immense popularity, with every show packed,” she said. “While collectors still attend viewings, they are more laid-back post-pandemic. Technology has its advantages, but art is a tactile, sensorial experience which, when witnessed in person, creates a profoundly unparalleled impression upon the viewer.”

Prominent industrialists and patrons are also proponents of the idea of art as a lifestyle and not just an impromptu online purchase for sustainable growth. Apart from building galleries and museums, they have extended support to art fairs like India Art Fair and Art Mumbai in an effort to bring more traffic and new clientele into physical art spaces. The hope, as it goes, is that measures of this sort will be enough to create a sustainable boom. 

A version of this article appears in the 2024 ARTnews Top 200 Collectors issue.