The Financial Times talked to Neha Kirpal about what Indian collectors want to buy. She says they’re expressing India’s new global power:

“The global names are what people are aspiring for and what they can very well afford,” Kirpal says.

Because of the appetite among Indian collectors to buy works of top international blue-chip artists, she says galleries are bringing in smaller (perhaps lower value) works of the top international artists. Local collectors include the Ambani family’s Harmony Art Foundation, Malvinder Singh, formerly chief executive of pharmaceutical company Ranbaxy, and Kiran Nadar, wife of Shiv Nadar who controls IT company HCL. Big buyers, such as businessmen Mukesh and Anil Ambani, are taking a greater interest in art, as their own travels take them to some of the world’s best known galleries and museums in Europe and the US.

“For the large business families, it’s become important to understand and buy the very best of what’s out there in the world,” says Kirpal. “What’s happening in the arts scene reflects what is happening in business. We are slowly going global.”

India’s Art Summit (Financial Times)