India's contemporary art market is in the middle of an upswing, powered by the country's economic boom and a surge in private wealth. With prices for the work of India's modern masters now nearly out of reach for emerging collectors, galleries have gone into rapid expansion mode — showing more aggressively at international fairs and opening new spaces. A new ARTnews primer singles out eight galleries worth knowing.

In Mumbai, Project 88, Chemould Prescott Road, Jhaveri Contemporary and TARQ anchor the scene. Chemould has been a driving force behind Mumbai Gallery Weekend since its 2012 inception, and the fourth generation of the family is now involved: Shireen Gandhy's daughter Atyaan Jungalwala runs the offshoot Chemould CoLab, which represents artists such as Jayeeta Chatterjee and Gurjeet Singh.

Kolkata's Experimenter, run by Prateek and Priyanka Raja, has built an unusually international footprint: Prateek sits on the selection committee for Art Basel in Basel while Priyanka does the same at Art Dubai. The gallery opened a second Kolkata space in 2018, expanded to Mumbai in 2022, and in 2025 added a third Kolkata outpost inside the renovated colonial-era Alipore Jail, repurposed as a cultural venue. Its Curator's Hub, running since 2010, has drawn figures including Hans Ulrich Obrist and Naomi Beckwith, and its roster includes Sohrab Hura, who features in the 2026 Venice Biennale.

New Delhi is represented by Nature Morte and Vadehra Art Gallery, while Talwar Gallery operates across New York and New Delhi. Together, the eight map a market where local collectors, fairs and a new generation of dealers are pulling in the same direction.