If you walk into KP Singh?s drawing room, the most prominent feature is a huge Husain canvas featuring his signature horses. There are others scattered across the DLF chairman?s Aurangzeb Road house and office, but as a former cavalry officer and polo player, horses are something of a passion. MF Husain was given a job by DLF when he was starting out on his creative career and had little money or even a place to stay and, in gratitude, he painted a large number of canvases for his benefactor, including the stunning rotunda at the DLF headquarters. Singh has a large enough collection, so he may not have been among the bidders at the landmark Christie?s auction in Mumbai on Thursday, but corporate India?s affair with art, as status, as investment and purely for the love of artwork, has been visibly on the rise.

Adi Godrej has an enviable stable of Husains, acquired on the prompting of his art-loving wife Parmeshwar, along with works by Jehangir Sabavala, Krishen Khanna, Arpana Caur, Anjolie Ela Menon and Manu Parekh. There is also Lekha Poddar and her husband, who have another great collection of Indian artists, as well as sculptures and installations. Tina Ambani has inspired husband Anil to put together an awesome collection of contemporary Indian art as part of the Harmony Art Collection. Sister-in-law Nita Ambani has also spent a fortune buying artwork to decorate Antilia?s 27 floors, but, easily, the biggest impact on contemporary Indian art has been Kiran Nadar. The wife of HCL?s Shiv Nadar has created huge waves in the art world. At a Christie?s auction in London, she bought an SH Raza work for R16.4 crore, the most expensive Indian painting ever sold. She has added to that by setting up the Kiran Nadar Museum of Art, which features the Nadars? personal collection, arguably, the most valuable in the country, which includes works by FN Souza, Bharti Kher, Tyeb Mehta, Husain, sculptor Anish Kapoor, Rameshwar Broota, J Swaminathan, Jogen Choudhury, Atul Dodiya and Subodh Gupta.

The Christie?s auction symbolises a significant development: the arrival of the secondary market. In the art world, the secondary market denotes auctions, while on the primary market, you buy directly from galleries. The good news is that a large chunk of the new Indian art buyers are not art investors, but serious collectors. Among corporate India?s art lovers is businessman Malvinder Singh, who has built a sizeable collection of contemporary art, including Arpita Singh?s Wish Dream valued at R9.6 crore and Bhupen Khakhar?s 17-part Gallery of Rogues. He has also launched the Religare Arts Initiative that aims to bring creative expression to the masses. Kumar Mangalam Birla is also a well-known art aficionado, a passion inherited from his late father, Aditya Birla, who was an accomplished amateur painter.

In India, traditionally, art purchases were mainly done by business houses. The Tatas have been great patrons of the arts and have one of the most extensive collections acquired since the 1940s mainly on the advice of connoisseurs Jamshed Bhabha and his brother Dr Homi Bhabha. The collection of over 500 works is on display at Bombay House and other Tata companies, most notably, at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, where Homi Bhabha worked. JRD Tata influenced the wonderful collection of art that belongs to Air India, some of it visible at their Mumbai headquarters. BK Birla and Sarala Birla, a couple with a keen interest in art, put together a priceless collection over 50 years, and many of the rare artworks?paintings, carvings, bronzes and manuscripts?are on display at The Birla Academy of Art & Culture. Similarly, Anupam and Lekha Poddar have set up the Devi Art Foundation to put their acquisitions on public display. Among corporate India?s most serious art collectors are Rajshree Pathy, chairman and managing director of the Rajshree Group; Pervez Damania, who has around 100 works in his art collection; Harsh Goenka of RPG, who boasts close to 800 paintings and other artworks; Ashok Alexander, former McKinsey consultant, who headed the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation in India; Ambuja Cements? Suresh Neotia; Abhishek Poddar; Sangita Jindal; and Ashwini Kakkar, head of Mercury Travels, who has over 550 paintings in his collection. Another passionate art collector is Sanjay Lalbhai of Arvind Mills.

Perhaps the most eclectic art collection can be found at the home and offices of Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw. Her purchases have been spontaneous and include the biggest names in the art world, as well as relatively unknown artists, apart from Scottish artists inspired by husband John Shaw. Bangalore-based Yusuf Arakal is a favourite, but she also has Husain, Anjolie Ela Menon, Arpana Caur and Paresh Maity to name some of the 800 artists she has collected and now calls the Biocon Collection. Bangalore is also where the new kids on the art block are emerging from, those earning big bucks from India?s IT sector. They already have the fancy car and the beautiful home. Now, they need big-name art on the walls to complete the circle. Christie?s, here they come.

The writer is Group Editor, Special Projects & Features, The Indian Express