Gaitonde's abstract works are produced in many Indian and overseas collections including the Museum of Modern Art, New York.

In 1957, he was awarded the first prize at the Young Asian Artists Exhibition, Tokyo and the Rockefeller Fellowship followed in 1964.

In fact he asserts that there is no such thing as abstract painting, instead he refers to his work as "non-objective" a kind of personalised hieroglyphics and calligraphic inventions, evoking the surface painted on with the most astounding intuitions, which he has realised in his inevitable meeting, in discovering Zen.

The meditative Zen quality that transpires his speech, emoting silence is exemplified in his work best, as silence is eternal and meaningful in itself, from this point one does tend to identify the mysterious motifs, the highly personalised hieroglyphs in Gaitonde's canvasses with the manifestation of intuitions, invested in their His work is influenced by Zen philosophy and ancient calligraphy.

V. S. Gaitonde was the first Indian contemporary painter whose work was sold for ₹9 million (US$100,000) at a 2005 Osians art auction in Mumbai.