That is approximately $2.15 million, including Pundole\u2019s (generous) 15% buyer\u2019s premium, more than six times a $303,000 record set for the artis<\/a>t just five days earlier at Saffronart in Mumbai, which beat a $91,000 sale at Pundole in 2023 and far exceeded prices around $30,000 or far less in earlier <\/a>years.<\/p>\n Shyam\u2019s first $303,000, 66in x 43in, acrylic on canvas, record breaker at Saffronart, showing birds removing insects from the backs of cows, titled \u201cBel Mukhota (Gond)\u201d<\/p>\n Shyam is probably India\u2019s most famous indigenous artist. He belonged to the central Indian Gond tribe and was from Madhya Pradesh.<\/p>\n He was a flute player and painted traditional motifs and scenes using natural pigments on the walls of Patangarh, his hill-top village, until he was ‘discovered’ in the early 1980s by Jagdish Swaminathan, an established artist whose works have also figured in the recent auctions.<\/p>\n While his records are an unexpected breakthrough for indigenous art, the $2.15m is of course not large compared with South Asian auction records that are currently heading towards $20m for prominent Indian artists including the Mumbai-based Progressives group. M.F. Husain topped the Pundole auction with a striking 48 inch x 24 inch oil on board titled Red Girl<\/a> that sold for Rs 65 crore, 13 times the top estimate of Rs 5 crore.<\/p>\n Shyam belonged to the Pardhan Gond community that had strong musical traditions. Bards told stories that preserved the myths and genealogy of Gond rulers and their people.<\/p>\n M.F. Husain\u2019s \u201cRed Girl\u201d, a 48in x 24in oil on board that topped the Pundole auction at Rs65 crore ($6.7m).<\/p>\n As Shyam\u2019s works this week show, the Gond artists transfer these stories onto canvas and paper, portraying scenes, real and imagined, from their lives in India\u2019s jungles and forests, weaving tales that combine their tribal gods and animals such as tigers, leopards and deer with birds, snakes, trees and people.<\/p>\n Villagers in Patangarh and elsewhere continue to produce intriguing works that are available at modest prices in India, while more sophisticated works are increasingly listed in art auctions for thousands of dollars. International museums including the Guggenheim in New York and the Chicago Cultural Institute have examples of Shyam\u2019s work, and Mumbai\u2019s annual art fair in November will feature tribal and folk art.<\/p>\n Shyam\u2019s story began when Swaminathan introduced him to acrylic paint and then, seeing his talent, took him to Bhopal<\/a>, the state\u2019s capital, where he was assembling local artists at a cultural centre called Bharat Bhavan. Shyam\u2019s art developed sufficiently for him to be invited to Japan, where he was on an artist\u2019s residency when he tragically died in 2011 by suicide, age 39.<\/p>\n \u201cJangarh has left his footprints and legacy in the history of Indian contemporary art,\u201d says Alka Pande, a leading curator, who has written a book about him. <\/a>\u201cHe brought alive the magic of his ancestral village of Patangarh and initiated a style of painting which has come to be known as the Jangarh Kalam. The prices of the Jangarh Kalam at the recent auction is a tribute to his creative genius\u201d.<\/p>\n Both the Pundole and Saffronart record breakers are unusually large. Saffronart\u2019s work, showing birds <\/a>removing insects from the backs of cows, is 66in x 43in.<\/p>\n Swaminathan\u2019s 32in x 44in oil on canvas from his \u201cBird, Tree and Mountain\u201d series that sold for Rs5 crore at Pundole<\/p>\n The untitled Pundole work<\/a>, depicting a spirit figure with snakes and birds in a tree, is larger at 91in x 69in.\u00a0 They are both acrylics on canvas, painted in 1999, and originated in Japan, where many of Shyam\u2019s works are located from his time there.<\/p>\n \u201cThe complex composition reveals the artist\u2019s ability to paint to any scale. His patterning and technique is varied across the composition and shows his experimental nature and his skill and versatility as an artist,\u201d says Rob Dean, a director of Pundole auctions.<\/p>\n The Pundole painting has never appeared before at an auction. It was estimated at Rs4 to 6 crore, and bidding on Sept 24 seemed to hesitate around Rs7 to 9 core, but then went ahead with three bidders narrowing to two, rising by a crore with each bid till one bidder gave way and it was sold for a hammer price of 18 crore. It was won by the collector with paddle 1730 who also bought a Swaminathan marble sculpture of a white owl and a bronze water buffalo by Somnath Hoare.<\/p>\n There was less bidding for the Saffronart record Shyam that came at the end of its auction and went for Rs2.88 crore ($303,158) including the premium against a Rs2 to 3 crore estimate.<\/p>\n Souza\u2019s 30in x 24in oil on board, \u201cWoman with Lamp\u201d that topped the Christie\u2019s auction at $2.3m<\/p>\n The Pundole auction also had three other paintings by Shyam which were sold well above estimates, and a striking 32in x 44in oil on canvas from Swaminathan\u2019s\u00a0Bird, Tree and Mountain Series\u00a0<\/a>that sold for Rs5 crore (including premium) against a top estimate of Rs3 crore ($315,790). The catalogue said his style of\u00a0\u00a0presented \u201cnatural objects in intangible landscapes glowing with luminous colours\u201d.<\/p>\n Records were set for many artists during the current season\u2019s South Asia auctions with Christie\u2019s sales totalling $22.57m<\/a> on September 16 in New York, and Saffronart reaching $23.01m i<\/a>n New Delhi along with $3.3m in a two-day online sale.<\/p>\n These results come at a time when collectors in the diaspora, as well as in India, have substantial funds and are looking for new types of art. \u201cBuyers are moving on at a time when there are fewer top artists\u2019 works available for auctions, and when art is becoming recognised as something that maintains its value through generations,\u201d says Dinesh Vazirani, Saffronart\u2019s co-founder and ceo.<\/p>\n The stars of C<\/a>hristie\u2019s New York auction<\/a> were the Progressives\u2019 F.N. Souza, along with Ganesh Pyne who dominated Christie\u2019s \u00a318,91m ($25.37m) London auction last November with works from a Calcutta tea company\u2019s collection.<\/p>\n Shyam\u2019s drawings at Sotheby\u2019s auction \u2013 14in x 11in \u201cBan Manush\u201d (forest man) on the left and 6in x 9in untitled.<\/p>\n Souza\u2019s Woman with Lamp<\/a>\u00a0(1949) was the top lot fetching $2.3m (including premium), almost four times its high estimate, and his\u00a0Building in Trafalgar Square\u00a0(1955) which made $1.1m. Ganesh Pyne\u2019s\u00a0The Slave\u00a0at $1.2m went for more than four times its low estimate. There were also two Jagdish Swaminathan\u2019s with hammer prices of $ 120,000 and $280.000. Christie\u2019s set eight world records during the sale.<\/p>\n Souza also led at Saffronart <\/a>with a remarkable record breaking Rs15.6 crores ($1.6m) for a work on paper \u2013 a brightly coloured 21in x 13in gouache titled Hanuman the Monkey God,\u00a0(1965)<\/p>\n These top sales are sure to continue. Sotheby\u2019s has its usual autumn auction in London next week including two small mid-1990s Shyam line drawings <\/a>(below) offered as one lot with a \u00a34,000-\u00a36,000 estimate \u2013 and, rather irrelevantly given this week\u2019s records, a \u201cno reserve\u201d tag.<\/p>\n Gond artists, especially Shyam, are clearly artists to watch.<\/p>\n John Elliot<\/a>\u00a0is a semi-retired British journalist, and blogger and author at\u00a0Riding the Elephant<\/a>.<\/p>\n A version of this article appeared on the author’s blog, Riding the Elephant, and has been republished with permission.<\/p>\n This article went live on September twenty-sixth, two thousand twenty six, at forty-eight minutes past two in the afternoon.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/shyam-saffronart-record.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/pundole-red-girl-1-edited.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/pundole-swaminathan-edited.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/souza-woman-lamp.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/sotheby-shyam.png\")
<\/p>\n