MF Husain's 'Untitled (Gram Yatra)' becomes most expensive modern Indian art; fetches $13.8 million at New York auction

New Delhi: Legendary painter MF Husain's Untitled (Gram Yatra), billed as one of his most important and sizable works from the 1950s, went for $13.8 million (over Rs 118 crore) at an auction, setting the new record for the most expensive work of modern Indian art.

The sale, which took place at a Christie auction in New York on March 19, nearly doubles the previous record-holder, Amrita Sher-Gil's 1937 "The Story Teller", which fetched around $7.4 million (Rs 61.8 crore) at an auction in Mumbai in 2023.

Comprising 13 unique panels that occupy almost 14 feet across a single canvas, Gram Yatra, which means ‘village pilgrimage', is widely regarded as a cornerstone of Husain's oeuvre, celebrating the diversity and dynamism of a newly independent nation.

"We are thrilled to have been a part of setting a new benchmark value for the work of Maqbool Fida Husain and the entire category. This is a landmark moment and continues the extraordinary upward trajectory of the Modern and Contemporary South Asian Art market," Nishad Avari, head of Christie's South Asian Modern and Contemporary Art, said in a statement.

The 1954 painting, which left India the same year, remained largely unseen since its acquisition by the Ukrainian-born Norway-based doctor Leon Elias Volodarsky, who was in Delhi to establish a thoracic surgery training centre for the World Health Organization (WHO).

Volodarsky bequeathed the painting to Oslo University Hospital in 1964. The proceeds of the sale will support the training of future generations of doctors at the institution.

Previously, Husain's most expensive painting, Untitled (Reincarnation), was sold for $3.1 million (approximately Rs 25.7 crore) in London last year.

Born on September 17, 1915 in Pandharpur in Maharashtra, Husain remains one of India’s most important and sought after artists whose oeuvre inspires art and conversations across the globe.

An avid reader of history and mythology and Indian culture, a large part of Husain’s art includes paintings of gods and goddesses in the context of the politics of the time, works that put him in the crosshairs of controversy.

With FIRs and persistent death threats, Husain was forced into self-exile, staying in Dubai and travelling to New York and London, where he died on June 9, 2011 at the age of 95, leaving behind a prodigious body of work.