At Rs 108 crore, M F Husain painting is most expensive modern Indian art

MF Husain’s Untitled (Gram Yatra). Pic/AFP

Legendary painter M F Husain's Untitled (Gram Yatra), billed as one of his most important and sizable works from the 1950s, went for $13.8 million (over R118 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 (R61.8 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.

"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.

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