An oil masterpiece on the canes forgotten by the Indian painter MF Husain, rediscovered decades later, rewritten the records for Indian art.
Husain’s Unitled (Gram Yatra), an extent of the 14 -foot wall, sold for $ 13.8 million (10.6 million pounds sterling) at an auction from Christie in New York last week. He broke the previous Indian Summit of $ 7.4 million (5.7 million pounds sterling) recovered by The Story Teller by Amrita Sher-Gil in 2023.
Husain, who died in 2011, at the age of 95, was a pioneer in Indian modernism and remains a lasting inspiration for Indian artists. In 2006, he left India after the death threats of Hindu groups lasts on his representations of deities.
For almost five decades, record painting unpretentiously pretended the walls of a Norwegian hospital, neglected and undervalued. Now, this is a decisive work of modern South Asian art.
Husain painted Gram Yatra – or Village Journey – in 1954, long before he became an icon.
Its 13 vignettes – lively snapshots of the life of the Indian village – reflect its distinctive mixture of Indian folk traditions and modernist influences. The vignettes recall narrative paintings in the miniature tradition of India, where small images weave a story.
At Gram Yatra, Husain used vibrant and earthy tones to give life to 13 images, with women in everyday scenes such as cooking, child care and driving in a cart.
In one of the executives, a farmer extends his arm as if he holds the land in the adjacent frame – a nod to the agricultural roots of Indian society.
“If you are looking for a single work of art that defines the modern art of Southern Asia, that’s all,” said Nishad Avari, chief of modern and contemporary art of South Asia in Christie’s.
The table, he added, also showed how Husain was influenced by his trips abroad, in particular his 1952 trip to China which presented it with the calligraphic brush of artists like Xu Beihong, whose traces can be seen in the expressive features of painting.
In the years following the independence of India, he sought inspiration not in Paris or New York, but in the villages of India, reflecting the Mahatma Gandhi that the heart of the nation resided in its rural roots.
According to Husain’s biographer, Akhilesh (who uses a single name), the deep commitment of the painter with the cultural fabric of India helped shape the way the country saw themselves – “how people live, what they like and what they think”.
The table also shows the first signs of the modified cubist style of Husain – where the geometric shapes and the daring lines have stood out in his works.
The journey of Delhi’s painting to Oslo adds to its mystique.
He was bought in 1954 for only $ 295 by the Ukrainian doctor Leon Elias Volodarsky, who was in India for a mission of the World Health Organization (WHO).
After taking it to Norway, the room adorned the walls of the Oslo University Hospital for almost half a century, largely unnoticed by the art world.
He thus remained for several decades until the Christie’s auction house was alerted to this subject in 2013 – two years after the death of Husain – leading to his global exhibitions before this record sale.
Ashish Anand de Delhi Art Gallery believes that this will raise the value of the entire work of Husain and “will lead to Indian art that art is seen beyond its aesthetic value to a tangible and serious financial asset”.
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