Indian Pioneer M.F. Husain’s Painting has a record-breaking sale at Christie’s New York auction house
M. F. Husain’s painting, Untitled (Gram Yatra) has been sold at Christie’s for $13.8 million in New York, which makes it the most expensive work of modern Indian art to be publicly auctioned till now.
Initially the amount anticipated by the auction house was estimated around $2.5 million–$3.5 million. Yet the amount for which it sold shattered expectations. The amount was more than four times M.F. Husain’s previous best-seller, which went off to a record of $3.1 million, for his painting, Untitled (Reincarnation) last September at Sotheby’s in London.
Indian Artists Breaking Sale Records
Courtesy- The Tribune
The record previously for a sold modern Indian work has been $7.4 million, for the famous Amrita Sher-Gil’s The Story Teller (1937), which had been sold in September 2023 in Mumbai. (Also, S. H. Raza’s 1959 painting Kallisté, which was sold last March at Sotheby’s for $5.6 million, was given an estimate of $2 million–$3 million—the highest price ever put on a modern Indian artwork at auction, a spokesperson for that house said.)
The record set by Husain this time was set during Christie’s sale for South Asian modern and contemporary art, a category for which the house continues to attract despite a fragmented art market in the current world scenario.
M.F. Husain’s Painting on Auction
Courtesy- Art News
The 1954 painting, which is nearly 14 feet long, took 13 years in the making and this particular piece was the one that Nishad Avari, the New York–based head of Christie’s South Asian modern and contemporary art department, referred to as “by far one of the most significant works” he had seen in his career.
Nishad Avari expected Untitled (Gram Yatra) to change Husain’s market, which has stayed behind in comparison to F. H. Souza and Raza, two other members of the Progressive Artists’ Group.
In the painting Untitled (Gram Yatra), Husain lays bare the centrality of village and rural life in India as the basis for becoming a nation.
Avari has pointed out that one of the 13 vignettes portrays a standing farmer—the only male figure in the piece. This, he calls a self-portrait of sorts, and the only image which crosses into another vignette of a landscape with fields.
Proceeds from M.F Husain’s Painting
The original owner of the said painting of Husain was Leon Elias Volodarsky, a Norwegian general surgeon and private art collector, who acquired Untitled (Gram Yatra) in New Delhi in 1954. Volodarsky’s estate donated it to the Oslo University Hospital in 1964.
The hospital contacted Christie’s about Untitled (Gram Yatra). For seven decades, Untitled (Gram Yatra) was not available for viewing by the public.
The 13-year process to get it to the auction block on March 19 was filled with tasks like gaining the necessary permissions from the Oslo University Hospital’s board when the institution was finally ready to sell. “ The proceeds from the record-breaking sales are going to be used to set up a training centre for doctors in Dr. Volodarsky’s name.
Feature Image Courtesy- NDTV
Contributor
