At just 24, Devashi Jain is emerging as a dynamic young voice in the Indian art world. A gallerist at Nature Morte, she leads the gallery’s ambitious new vertical dedicated to International and Indian Modern Art, a move that reflects both her bold curatorial vision and her deep understanding of the global art market.
Trained at NYU and Sotheby’s Institute of Art, and drawing from her years immersed in New York’s competitive art ecosystem, Jain has returned to India with a radical proposition: that a Pablo Picasso can hang alongside a Bharti Kher in the same home, not as cultural curiosities, but as equals in a shared modernist conversation.
Her inaugural exhibition, “Salon: The India Way,” borrows the dense, salon-style hanging of the historic Paris Salon to create something entirely new—a transnational space where Indian modernists like Manjit Bawa and Zarina Hashmi engage in visual dialogue with Alberto Giacometti and Pierre-Auguste Renoir. The exhibition rejects the traditional narrative of modernism as a one-way inheritance from West to East, instead proposing it as a simultaneity shaped by parallel artistic revolutions across geographies.
What makes Jain’s vision particularly compelling is how it addresses a specific gap in India’s rapidly maturing art market. While Indian collectors have long engaged with Western art abroad, few domestic platforms offer consistent access to blue-chip international works. The Salon Series she spearheads at Nature Morte is a proposition for how we might look, think, and historicize differently.
In our conversation, we explore how this young gallerist is expanding the possibilities of connoisseurship in India, and elaborate upon her journey so far and what lies ahead.
Q. You are a young Gallerist leading a major new vertical at Nature Morte that bridges Indian and international modern art. What drove you to take on this ambitious project so early in your career, and how has your experience in New York’s competitive art ecosystem informed your approach?
Devashi Jain: My time in New York allowed me to be a part of many engaging cross-cultural dialogues and I found that these were the most engaging conversations. The idea behind this vertical in part stems from there. While it is certainly ambitious, I see it as a step forward in widening the scope of how Indian audiences engage with global art histories, as well as how Indian modernism is positioned in the international narratives.
As to why now, my answer would be: why not now? There’s no time like the present, especially because the Indian art market is evolving into a more globally connected, and intellectually diverse ecosystem.
Q. You’ve said that “a Pablo Picasso can hang alongside a Bharti Kher in the same home.” Can you elaborate on how you envision Indian collectors’ relationships with art evolving, and what role the Salon Series plays in that transformation?
Devashi Jain: I am hoping that with the way the first salon has been curated – with a Renoir right next to a Tyeb Mehta and Zarina, that collectors would be able to see that it is a possibility to have these works hung together and that these juxtapositions can be enriching as well. By seeing these works together, I hope that it opens the avenue to new ways of thinking about art across geographies and histories.
As the Indian art ecosystem continues to evolve and grow rapidly, I am also hoping that the Salon Series may play a role in nurturing a more adventurous and global collecting practice- which is still rooted in the richness of Indian art.
Q. “Salon: The India Way” explicitly rejects the narrative of Indian modernism as “belated” or “derivative.” How do you see this exhibition rewriting art historical canons, and what specific examples from the show demonstrate this simultaneity of modernist movements?
Devashi Jain: I would not go so far to say this exhibition itself is rewriting art historical canons but rather participating in that ongoing process. If you see the way this first iteration is installed, no work has been given more importance than the other. They are all hung together on equal footing, allowing viewers to experience the simultaneity of these modernist movements. The works whether it is a Tyeb Mehta or a Zarina next to a Renoir or Giacometti can sit comfortably next to each other without being seen as secondary. The show is inviting viewers to reconsider hierarchies.
Q. The Paris Salon format was historically both influential and exclusionary. How are you navigating this complex legacy while using it as a framework for cross-cultural dialogue in contemporary India?
Devashi Jain: The history of the Paris Salon is certainly double-edged as it created visibility for many artists and shaped cultural taste, but it also reinforced hierarchies and was exclusionary in nature. In reviving this idea for our series, we are more interested in reimagining this in our current context instead of replicating it. For us, it is more about creating a dialogue rather than gatekeeping. The goal was to create an avenue and space for conversation between the many generations of Indian and international modernism, and between younger audiences, collectors and more. The challenge is honoring the Salon’s role as an influential platform for exchange but also consciously tackling the exclusivity it historically represented. In India, this becomes even more urgent as our audiences are so diverse and may not necessarily have had unlimited access to global art histories. By staging this in Mumbai, in a way we hope to also democratize exposure, and enable those who may have never had a chance to see these works in person, to see them in person.
Q. You’ve identified a gap in the Indian market regarding access to blue-chip international artists. What are the practical challenges of bringing these works to Indian collectors?
Devashi Jain: On a practical level, there are some obvious considerations like import regulations, taxation, insurance and ensuring museum level standard care for these works. These are not small problems and would require building new partnerships and infrastructure for these works to enter the Indian market safely. Pricing can be another challenge, with some works by these blue-chip international artists being daunting, even for seasoned collectors. Internationally these prices work within the mature ecosystems they are in, but in India as the market is still developing, this may pose a challenge. Beyond logistics and pricing, there are cultural challenges too. Many Indian collectors already engage with international artists abroad; the challenge would be to shift this engagement to India. This would mean building confidence that the same works can be accessed here with full transparency, scholarly framing and international best practices.
Q. Beyond exhibitions, the Salon Series includes curated sales and advisory services. How do you see these different components working together to build a more sophisticated collecting culture in India?
Devashi Jain: For us, this series is not only about staging exhibitions but rather taking part in creating an ecosystem. While exhibitions set a stage for dialogue and visibility, that alone doesn’t shift collecting culture. This is where the sales and advisory services come in, it translates scholarship and access into meaningful, long-term engagement for collectors. By doing so, we are giving collectors the opportunity to acquire works within a framework. It is about guiding patrons through questions of provenance, comparative value, historical positioning and more, so that their collections grow in intellectual depth as well. The idea is to build further on collection building as a way of participating in cultural history, which in turn could build a more sophisticated collecting culture in India.
Q. In placing Indian modernists like Manjit Bawa and Tyeb Mehta alongside European contemporaries, what unexpected visual or conceptual affinities have emerged? Can you discuss specific works that exemplify this “co-presence” rather than comparison?
Devashi Jain: As I mentioned in an earlier response, this exhibition is not about comparison or hierarchy rather co-presence. Certain affinities reveal themselves naturally like Manjit Bawa’s distinctive use of color, which resonates with Signac’s experimentation with color, or Jogen Chowdhury’s pen sketches with the distorted yet intimate human forms, placed in proximity to Renoir’s gentle study of young highlight how artists across geographies treated the human form.
Q. This is the first in a series of salon-style exhibitions. What themes or artistic dialogues are you considering for future installations, and how do you plan to expand this transnational curatorial approach?
Devashi Jain: Further editions will bring in more international art and expand the range of dialogue. The goal for each iteration is to open new ways of thinking about modernism and its global resonances. As time goes on we will reveal the themes step by step, keeping the element of discovery alive for our audiences.
Q. For emerging artists and younger collectors, what do you hope this exhibition and the broader Salon Series will change about how art is discussed, collected, and valued in India?
Devashi Jain: I hope that this series broadens the lens of how art is understood and valued in India. By placing Indian modernists alongside international icons, the exhibition shows that our histories are not peripheral to global narratives. I hope this can also inspire younger audiences to see collecting as cultural participation instead of solely acquisition and encourages emerging artists to take part in a larger transnational conversation.
The inaugural exhibition curated by Poonji Nath, Salon: The India Way, will be on view at Nature Morte, Colaba, Mumbai,
till 15 September 2025
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