Husain artwork sells for Indian record ₹118cr

Mumbai: The value of Indian Modern Art received yet another fillip after a work by Maqbool Fida Husain sold for a record $13.7 million (approximately ₹118.7 crore) at a Christie’s South Asian Modern + Contemporary Art auction in New York on March 19.

The sale shattered Christie’s estimate, which was between $2.5 million and $3.5 million. Husain’s previous highest-selling work, Untitled (Reincarnation, 1957), went for ₹26.75 crore (approximately $3.1 million) in a Sotheby’s sale in London last year. The highest-selling work of Indian art sold in auction until now was The Story Teller by Amrita Sher-Gil, which fetched a tidy ₹61.8 crore ($7.4 million) at a Saffronart auction in September 2023.

Husain’s nearly 14-foot-long oil on canvas, Untitled (Gram Yatra), was made in consignments and completed in 1954. It comprises 13 vignettes of village life made soon after Independence and the tumultuous years of Partition.