There’s a boom in the modern Indian art market with sales totalling £96.2m at international auctions in the past fortnight. Saffronart, the market leader, almost doubled the maximum total for an Indian auction to $40.2m, while Sotheby’s and Pundole each totalled $25.5m and $18.3m with Christie’s trailing at $12.4m. All four were celebrated as “white glove” sales, where all the lots were sold.Top prices have been achieved for a variety of artists. They were inevitably led by members of the ultra-safe Bombay-based Progressives Group, which began in the 1940s, with names such as F.N. Souza, M.F. Husain and V.S. Gaitonde. Records were also set however for later artists including Bhupen Khakhar, Mohan Samant, Arpita Singh Vivan Sundaram and Nalini Malani who have been attracting increasing interest at auctions, though there were few works from contemporary artists.Competition between two top collectors helped to boost prices for some prime lots, notably at Sotheby’s auction in London on September 30 where Manjari Sihare-Sutin, co-head of South Asian art, said the £18.9m ($25.5m with premium) achieved was the department’s highest total in its 30-year history.Two Souza works created a new record for the artist after a contest between Shankh Mitra from the US, who is a relatively fresh collector and was in the auction room, and Kiran Nadar who bids down the telephone for her large art museum in Delhi.M.F. Souza’s ‘Six Gentlemen of Our Times’.Bidding against Mitra, Nadar won the Emperor at a hammer price of £4.2m, ($6.9m with premium), beating the artist’s previous $4.89m record set at Christies in New York in March 2024.A few lots later, in another tussle that began with nine bidders, Mitra set a higher record with Houses in Hampstead (above) at £4.6m ($7.57m with premium). This followed a Christie’s New York contest between th two collectors last March for a notable Husain work that Nadar eventually won for $13.75m. Mitra has also been buying extensively in other auctions, challenging Nadar’s success for many years at acquiring the best works by top artists. He is the ceo and chief investment officer of Welltower Inc, a real estate investment trust working in the healthcare sector.Another Souza record came in the Saffronart sale on September 27 in Delhi for a unique collection (above) of six 10in x 8in pen and ink on paper drawings titled Six Gentlemen of our Times. This sold for an unexpectedly high hammer price of Rs170m ($2.30m including 20% buyers’ premium), which was the highest auction price ever paid for a South Asian work on paper.M.F. Husain’s ‘Morning Bath’, painted in his 20s.Delhi-based art critic Geeta Kapur has described these heads as “a combined portrait of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, sly, evil and at the same time terrified.” The next lot was a similar single man’s head by Souza. It went even more surprisingly at a hammer price six times the top estimate for the rupee equivalent of $67,797 (including the premium).All four auction houses pitched many of their estimates low – at Sotheby’s 94% of the lots exceeded their top estimate. The aim was to draw in bidders at a time when art is being increasingly seen in India as a strong investment, pulling in new collectors – a third of Sotheby’s buyers were new to the auction house.“Indian art is now being accepted as an asset, like gold or real estate, that you buy and hold because of its long-term value, rather than trading,” says Dinesh Vazirani, who founded Saffronart with his wife Minal in 2000In celebration of its 25th anniversary, Saffronart packed its 85-lot auction so successfully with top priced works that the leading ten lots alone went for a total of over £25m. The total $40.2m beat a $25.2m all-India record that Saffronart set in April.The low estimates brought some remarkable multiples.Pundole’s Rs1.62m ($18.29m) auction of 81 lots on September 25 in Mumbai had a dramatic start with memorable early works by members of the Progressives Group, all painted when they were in their 20s. They were part of a collection assembled by Emanuel Schlesinger, an Austrian emigre who fled from Europe in the 1930s to escape Nazism and became a patron of young Bombay artists.‘Bombay from from Malabar Hill’, painted by S.H. Raza in his 20s.A figurative 32in x 31in oil on canvas, Morning Bath, by M.F. Husain (above) fetched eight times the top estimate at a hammer price of Rs190m – $2.46m including Pundole’s 15% buyers’ premium. Three watercolour landscapes by S.H. Raza included a 12in x 18.5in panoramic view across Bombay’s Marine Drive and city from Malabar Hill (above) that went for 14 times the top estimate at a hammer price of Rs22m ($248,000 including premium).Works by Mohan Samant, a lesser-known member of the group, who mostly lived in New York, had several successes with a personal record of Rs5.5m ($62,000) hammer price, seven times the top estimate, for a 33in x 27in watercolour, Red Carpet.Arpita Singh’s record ‘With and Without Shadows’.“We saw increasing emphasis on artists outside the more predictable names,” says Dadiba Pundole. “Collectors are also more aware of works of academic importance, and are willing to fight for these, irrespective of medium or scale.”Arpita Singh’s record came in at Rs165m ($2.14m with premium) at the Pundole auction for a colourful 68in x 68in oil on canvas titled With and Without Shadows (above). The veteran artist had a highly successful retrospective exhibition in London during the summer, which brought fresh attention to her work.Pundole’s top lot was a 45in x 36in oil on canvas by Tyeb Mehta depicting a female labourer from 1983. It sold for a hammer price of Rs260m ($3.37m including premium). Also in this auction, Bhupen Khakhar achieved a record work-on-paper price of Rs42m ($544,839 with premium) for an erotic gay form of puja, with the artist in the crowd.Gaitonde’s record came in the Saffronart auction for a glowing gold coloured untitled 55in x 40in oil on canvas in the artist’s iconic misty style (right). This was an early work, painted in 1971, and it fetched a hammer price of Rs560m ($7.58m including the premium) exceeding Gaitonde’s previous record of Rs420m at a Pundole auction in 2022.V.S.Gaitonde’s record work painted in 1971.Bidding was slow for the top lots at Christie’s $12.34m auction on September 17 in New York where a V.S. Gaitonde achieved a top price (including premium) of $2.39m and a Tyeb Mehta Trussed Bull went for $2.03m.By contrast, another work in Mehta’s Trussed Bull series was sold (to Shankh Mitra) for ,Rs470m ($6.37m including the premium) at Saffronart’s auction, following a record $7.2m set for a similar work at Saffronart in April.This year’s strong prices for Indian modern art have revived memories of the first boom in 2005 which was partly triggered by newly-rich Indian buyers working in New York financial services. That fell away with the 2008 financial crisis. This time the boom has a stronger base with a mass of new buyers of all ages, even though it is partly fuelled by individuals competing for the top lots.This article first appeared on the writer’s blog Riding the Elephant.