A landmark second for the burgeoning South Asian artwork market was made in the present day when M.F. Husain’s monumental 1954 portray Untitled (Gram Yatra) offered for $13.7m (with charges) in New York, almost quadruple its excessive estimate of $3.5m. That end result set a brand new file for Fashionable Indian artwork at public sale, in addition to Indian portray. Main Christie’s South Asian Fashionable and modern public sale, it virtually doubles the earlier file for this class, which was achieved in 2023 for Amrita Sher Gil’s The Storyteller (1937), at Saffronart in Mumbai.
That is the second-highest worth achieved for a murals from South Asia throughout all time durations, after the $24.6m paid for a Twelfth-century black stone determine of a bodhisattva from northeastern India, offered at Christie’s New York in 2017.
The record-setting Husain was chased by 5 bidders, in accordance with a Christie’s spokesperson, and offered to an establishment, bidding on the cellphone with Nishad Avari, the top of division for South Asian Fashionable and modern artwork at Christie’s. The public sale home declined to disclose the establishment.
Christie’s gross sales of Fashionable and modern South Asian artwork in New York on 19 March Courtesy Christie’s
A mural-sized work comprised of 13 panels, it’s “probably the most important work by Husain to come back to the general public market in a era”, Avari says. The Nineteen Fifties are Husain’s Most worthy decade and the earlier secondary market record-holder for the artist, the Untitled (Reincarnation) that offered for $3.2m final September, dates from 1957. Throughout these years Husain travelled extensively round each India and the world, and the assorted panels of Untitled (Gram Yatra), every a separate vignette, element a wealth of worldwide influences, from Paul Klee and Pablo Picasso to Chinese language calligraphy. The work’s unofficial title in Hindi, “Gram Yatra”, means village pilgrimage and it depicts quotidian scenes of pastoral and rural life throughout the nation as Husain sought to seize the fact of India within the years following its independence.
Popularly often called the Volodarsky Husain after its former proprietor, the Ukrainian-born and Norway-based physician Leon Elias Volodarsky, the work has been largely unseen for many of its 71 yr historical past. Voldardsky purchased the work throughout a posting in Delhi. Following his loss of life in 1964, his property bequeathed it to the Oslo College Hospital, his employer, the place it was positioned in a non-public hall, out of public view. The hospital consigned the portray to in the present day’s sale. Securing the work has been a “13-year journey, which is my total profession at Christie’s”, Avari says. Proceeds from the sale will go in the direction of establishing a coaching centre for future medical doctors.
The whole sale made $24.8m (with charges), greater than twice its $11.7m excessive estimate (calculated with out charges). The spectacular end result comes as public sale totals for bigger areas of the market, from London to China, are witnessing a downturn. Certainly, as Avari factors out, this Husain is the “most costly work to be offered at any public sale home in 2025” to date, a notable achievement contemplating this contains night gross sales carried out earlier this month in London.
Whereas acknowledging this second as “phenomenal” for the sphere of South Asian artwork, Avari is cautious of viewing this as a chance for public sale homes to rapidly start lifting estimates for Indian artwork. “We elevate costs primarily based on sustained developments somewhat than distinctive achievements. This work was actually one in every of a form.”
