MF Husain painting fetches Rs 118 crore, becomes most expensive modern Indian art

New Delhi,Mar 20, 2025 : Legendary painter MF Husain’s Untitled (Gram Yatra), billed as one of his most important and sizable works from the 1950s, went for USD 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 USD 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 Organisation.

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.

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.