While the art of doyens such as V.S. Gaitonde, M.F. Hussain, Tyeb Mehta and Atul Dodiya, among others, have been celebrated by academics and collectors alike, a new and encouraging trend is emerging. Exponential increase in inquiries with regards to the artistic accomplishments of India’s women artists has led to numerous high-profile exhibitions and grand retrospectives at reputed institutes and museums in the recent past. Be it Arpita Singh’s retrospective ‘Six Decades of Painting’ that took place at the Kiran Nadar Museum of Art, New Delhi, or Nalini Malani’s retrospective at the Centre Pompidou, Paris. At the same time, stupendous auction results achieved for works by women artists have made the collector community sit up and take note. These triumphs, celebrating the mastery of women artists, indicate that the eco-system of the art market in India is consistently witnessing progress towards giving them their long-overdue recognition. Therefore, it is plausibly an ideal time for one to consider acquiring iconic creations by our nation’s women artists.

Indian women artists are consistently breaking glass ceilings, be it through their innovative and unapologetic creative expressions, or by the accentuated commercial and financial success that their creations leverage in the art market. A closer look at the combined auction statistics of the women artists discussed above reveal that for the 2021 auction season their collective sale figure was around Rs 59.32 crore in comparison with Rs 45.41 crore in the 2020 auction season. The streak of auction world records is another validating point, be it Amrita Sher-Gil or Meera Mukherjee’s.

This leap in demand clearly indicates that the road ahead for women artists beams with unparalleled opportunities and, therefore, it is imperative to celebrate the legacies of all the pioneers who have paved, and continue to contribute towards building a brighter future for women artists in India.

Amrita Sher-Gil

Ironically, for India, it was a young woman who changed the course of how the world recognised Indian art and artists. “I can only paint in India. Europe belongs to Picasso, Matisse, Braque, India belongs only to me,” claimed the prodigious artist Amrita Sher-Gil. Even after eight decades of her untimely death, she continues to be the crowning glory of numerous auctions and exhibitions representing Indian art. An extremely intimate work, a portrait of her husband Victor Egan created waves in the auction market after it was acquired for Rs 10.8 crore at an auction in 2020. The painting was created as a parting gift to her husband’s family, after the couple decided to shift base from Hungary to India in 1939, and then to Lahore in 1941. Depicting Egan, a Hungarian army doctor in his uniform, the work garnered noticeable traction since the theme intertwined with the artist’s personal life and had emotional sentiments attached to it. Although she passed away at the early age of 28, Sher-Gil continues to be revered for her indomitable spirit.

Untitled: Meera Mukherjee

Meera Mukherjee

Meera Mukherjee is another artist whose works continue to be highly admired and sought after in India and across the globe. While in Munich in 1953, she worked with Toni Stadler and Heinrich Kirchner, who encouraged her to focus on sculpting. Instrumental in ameliorating the traditional Dhokra style of creating sculpture, her artistic journey was marked by the use of innovative bronze casting techniques; while her creations pay homage to the feminine form, and celebrate the strength of a woman. The artist’s market value is also on the rise considering that her iconic work from the year 1981 established another milestone for Indian art in the recent past as it created an auction world record for the artist in September 2021. The bronze sculpture was auctioned for an impressive value of Rs 1.3 crore.

Untitled: Arpita Singh

Arpita Singh

Arpita Singh is one of the very few artists from her generation who is still actively practising. Known for her vivacious and colourful figurative paintings, Singh joined Delhi Polytechnic College in 1954 and studied under the tutelage of artists like Biren De, Jaya Appaswany, Sailoz Mookherjea, and B.C. Sanyal. Her visual lexicon has witnessed an evolution of style and technique. With each composition telling a story of its own, replete with figures, dates, numbers, days and clocks, these repetitive almost confining motifs and symbols are an excellent example of Singh’s inspection into the lives of women. Her textured canvases are rendered with utmost precision of form, while the topography of the paintings brim with a complex web of elements drawn from various sources which include personal experiences, mythology, fiction, and Bengali folklore. Her work ‘Tuesday Wednesday,’ was acquired for an impressive value of Rs 1.1 crore last year.

Untitled: Bharti Kher

Bharti Kher

Women artists have also been at the forefront of propelling the importance of contemporary Indian art. One of India’s leading contemporary artists, Bharti Kher has enjoyed an extremely successful career spanning over three decades. While she has employed a myriad of mediums and materials, her signature style incorporates the use of bindis. A symbol of femininity, strength, and spirituality, the bindi started to first appear in the artist’s work in 1995 and has undergone a subliminal transformation through her art. The grand canvases that she creates in this style are a result of the meticulous and layered placement of the bindis on the surface. This practice also brings to her art a range of meanings and connotations across historical and contemporary periods. “I have been quite dogmatic about using bindis. But I feel that by the very act of repetition, I have made them my own language. I play with its form and content to create different layers of meaning,” the artist has said in the past. Kher’s works have consistently been top-selling pieces at numerous auctions for contemporary art.

A large-scale diptych work titled ‘An Eye, A Tooth’ was acquired for a bid of Rs 1.3 crore at the first edition of our contemporary art auction last year. The work is a mixed media sculpture made of wooden panels and bindis. Executed in 2011, the work was also a part of the artist’s solo exhibition ‘Leave Your Smell,’ at Galerie Perrotin, Paris.

Cloud Hunter: Anju Dodiya

Anju Dodiya

Artist Anju Dodiya is another woman artist from the contemporary art scene in India who is commended for her unique and unconventional art practice. Starting from early abstract works, Dodiya turned an inward gaze to find a hallmark of her style that is rooted in introspection and self-awareness. This autobiographical approach and practice often results in haunting self-portraits where she or the protagonist is found in a dream-like, dramatic setting. Dodiya’s artworks are layered with a hybrid of references spanning different eras and times. With inspiration from various artistic legacies such as Japanese Ukiyo-e prints, poetry, miniature paintings, medieval Renaissance masters as well as European cinema, she creates a mysterious visual narrative of her inner conflicts with the existential reality and her exasperation at the injustices in the world. Her paintings come alive as illuminated theatrical stages for her eccentric magician-like characters with their elaborate costumes and masks to play out.

The author is Vice-President, Client Relations, AstaGuru Auction House