MORT CHATTERJEE OFFERS A BRIEF INSIGHT INTO WHAT MAKES KIRAN NADAR THE SINGLE MOST IMPORTANT INDIAN COLLECTOR OF ART IN OUR TIME.

The desire to accumulate things is a primal urge shared across species.

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Developed over millennia, in humans, this urge has resulted in the noble madness of the collector. Of course, the bird obsessed with stealing shiny objects for its nest is engaged in a different kind of activity from the seasoned collector buying art for their walls. The former accumulates; the latter collects. A collector is following a systematic model when, by creating classifications and acquiring serially, they look to “fill in the gaps” with new examples.

The history of collecting Indian art has registered only a handful of truly great names: the Maharaja of Baroda, Sayajirao Gaekwad III (1863-1939); Homi Bhabha for the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research mid-century; and the American couple Chester and Davida Herwitz in the 1970s. In our own time, there is only one figure whose name can stand alongside these legends: Kiran Nadar.