Air India Once Amassed The World’s Greatest Collection Of Modern Indian Art – What’s Happened To It?

They don’t know – and that’s the problem. For much of the state-owned airline’s history, it was one of a very few serious buyers of living Indian artists’ work – in effect, a national art patron. Now that much of that artwork is worth many thousands of dollars (or more) a piece, there’s no proper inventory of what Air India bought over the years or where it’s supposed to be – and some of it has been turning up in the private market.