ARTnews | M. F. Husain Work Sells for $13.8 M. at Christie’s, Shattering the Auction Record for Modern Indian Art

By Karen K. Ho

The Husain record was mintedduring Christie’s sale for South Asian modern and contemporary art, a category which continues to garner momentum despite a fragmented art market.

The 1954 painting, which is nearly 14 feet long, was a consignment 13 years in the making and one that Nishad Avari, the New York–based head of Christie’s South Asian modern and contemporary art department, called “by far one of the most significant works” he’s seen in his career.

Avari told ARTnews that, prior to the sale, his department had hoped Untitled (Gram Yatra) would change Husain’s market, which has lagged compared to F. H. Souza and Raza, two other members of the Progressive Artists’ Group.

Of the Husain painting, Avari said, “It comprises of 13 separate vignettes of village life in India, which is really important, because this is five years after Indian independence, and Husain and all his colleagues are trying to figure out at the time what it means to be a modern Indian artist.”

In the painting Untitled (Gram Yatra), Husain emphasizes the centrality of village and rural life in India as the basis for going forward as a new nation. Avari also noted that one of the 13 vignettes portrays a standing farmer—the only male figure in the in the piece. This is a self-portrait of sorts, and the only image which crosses into another vignette of a landscape with fields. “It’s literally a portrait of a farmer as a sustainer of the land and a protector of the land,” Avari said.

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