Biography
Manjari Sihare-Sutin is Senior Vice President and Worldwide Head of Modern & Contemporary South Asian Art at Sotheby’s, a role she has held since 2026. She joined Sotheby’s in 2015 and rapidly advanced through the department’s leadership ranks: becoming principal contributor in 2017, Head of Sale for New York in 2018, Head of Department for the Americas in 2021, and Co-Worldwide Head in 2024.
Today, she directs the global strategy and market development of the category across New York, London, the Middle East and Asia, overseeing the biannual flagship auctions that have become defining platforms for the field. Under her leadership, the 2025 sales in New York and London achieved a combined total of $42 million — the highest annual result in the department’s 30-year history — marking a transformative moment in the category’s global expansion.
From March 2022 through September 2025, the department achieved 87 world auction records under her direction, spanning artists such as M.F. Husain, S.H. Raza, Ganesh Pyne, Jehangir Sabavala, K.C.S. Paniker, Madhvi Parekh, Zainul Abedin, K.K. Hebbar, Manjit Bawa, and Rabindranath Tagore.
Between 2023 and 2025, she brought a series of landmark works to market that reshaped price benchmarks across the category. In 2023, Maqbool Fida Husain’s Bulls (1961) achieved $2.8 million, establishing a new world auction record for the artist at the time. In March 2024, Sayed Haider Raza’s Kalliste (1959) realised $5.6 million, becoming the most expensive work in the category sold at Sotheby’s and setting a new auction record for the artist. In March 2025, Jagdish Swaminathan’s Homage to Solzhenitsyn achieved $4.7 million, nearly quintupling his previous record. In September 2025 in London, Sotheby’s broke the world auction record for Francis Newton Souza twice in one evening: Emperor realised $6.9 million, followed by Houses in Hampstead at $7.6 million — establishing a new benchmark for the artist and one of the defining moments of the international season.
Her sales are recognised for combining rigorous scholarship with disciplined market strategy, introducing both canonical and rediscovered artists to global collectors and institutions. She has also led the sale of major American collections of South Asian art, including the collections of Marcia Gilmartin, Robert and Ruth Marshak, the Estate of His Excellency Jamsheed K. Marker and Diana J. Marker, and the Virginia and Ravi Akhoury Collection.
Prior to joining Sotheby’s, Manjari served as Curatorial Manager at the Queens Museum, where she organised significant exhibitions of Pedro Reyes and Andy Warhol, as well as exhibitions of Cuban, Tibetan, and Indian contemporary art. She is regularly featured in leading international publications including The Financial Times, The Art Newspaper, ARTnews, Artsy, Mint, The Times of India, and The New Indian Express.
Manjari holds graduate degrees in Art History from the National Museum Institute, New Delhi, and in Visual Arts Administration from New York University.
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