Auction record for Jangarh Singh Shyam: work by Indian tribal artist sells for about $2.15 million in Mumbai

An untitled 1999 acrylic painting by Jangarh Singh Shyam, the Indian artist of the Gond tribe, sold for 18 crore rupees — about $2.15 million — at the Pundole gallery auction in Mumbai, setting a new absolute record for the artist and for indigenous Indian art, as Asia Sentinel reports. The work, 91 by 69 inches, depicting a spirit figure surrounded by snakes and birds in a tree, had been initially estimated at 4 to 6 crore rupees.

According to Robb Report India, bidding started slowly, around 7–9 crore rupees, before three bidders, then two, pushed the price up by one crore per bid; the winning bidder, identified as number 1730, also bought a marble sculpture by Jagdish Swaminathan and a bronze sculpture by Somnath Hoare. The painting had never before appeared at auction.

The result is nearly seven times higher than the artist’s previous record — 2.88 crore rupees (about $303,000) — set just five days earlier at Saffronart Mumbai for the work “Bel Mukhota (Gond)”, and far above the 2023 record of $91,000 at the same gallery. However, as Asia Sentinel notes, $2.15 million remains far from the records of leading Indian artists, which are heading toward $20 million.

Shyam (1962–2001), perhaps India’s most famous indigenous artist, belonged to the Gond tribe of Madhya Pradesh: he was a flute player who painted the walls of his village Patangarh with natural pigments, until he was discovered in the early 1980s by artist Jagdish Swaminathan. He died in 2001, aged 40, during an artist residency in Japan; his works are held in international collections, including New York’s Guggenheim.

The Pundole auction was led by M.F. Husain’s “Red Girl”, sold for 65 crore rupees — thirteen times the maximum estimate of 5 crore — while a work from Swaminathan’s “Bird, Tree and Mountain” series reached 5 crore rupees, above the 3-crore estimate.