MEET THE ULTRA-RICH INDIANS SHAKING UP THE CAPITAL'S ART SCENE

London's major galleries are struggling, but there may be a lifeline: a new class of art-loving billionaires.

- By Claudia Cockerell

There was something on Shanay Jhaveri's mind when he became head of visual arts at the Barbican in 2023. "I was quite surprised when I arrived that there hadn't been a show at a major London public institution of a South Asian or Indian artist since 2016," he says.

The last had been at the Tate, and Jhaveri was determined to change that. He struck up a partnership with Kiran Nadar Museum of Art in Delhi and in 2024, he curated an exhibition called The Imaginary Institution of India, which showed 150 pieces from over 30 Indian artists. Around two thirds of the work had never been exhibited in the UK. It was a hit with critics, who described it as "shocking" and "enlightening". This was the start of a sea change. Major exhibitions of Indian art followed at the V&A, The British Museum and the Serpentine. This Friday, a show of works by Indian sculptor Mrinalini Mukherjee and her contemporaries opens at the Royal Academy. "What I hope is these things are not just a trend," says Tarini Malik, who curated the exhibition.

Meanwhile, the Indian art market is at an all-time high, with record sales at the major auction houses. The shift may seem sudden, but according to Malik, "It's a culmination of years' worth of effort across different parts of the arts ecology." In London, that effort is being supported by an influx of wealth from billionaire Indian arts patrons. Buoyed by the fact that India is the fastest-growing economy in the world, while the UK continues to slump, they are helping to build on a thriving cultural diaspora.