MF Husain painting sells for Rs 118 crore, sets record for Indian artwork

The record price fetched by MF Husain Gram Yatra even surprised Christie's, where the painting was being auctioned. "Our estimate was $2.5-3.5 million which we thought was fair, but this was a phenomenal work," says Nishad Avari, head of South Asian Modern and Contemporary Art at Christie's.

"The only comparable work is Husain's Zameen, which is in the collection of the National Gallery of Modern Art in New Delhi," Avari adds.

Husain, often known as India's barefoot Picasso, started his career as a hoarding painter, and like the Bollywood posters he painted, his story was quite filmy. It didn't have such a happy ending though as death threats and multiple lawsuits forced the artist into exile. "This is a homecoming of sorts for Husain," says Yashodhara Dalmia, art historian and curator. A founding member of the Progressive Artists Group, Husain and his contemporaries gave Indian art a new modernist language post-Independence. "Gram Yatra shows his modernist vocabulary and influences but is yet completely rooted in India. He spotlighted the ordinary Indian in the painting. You can see a farmer tilling the soil, a woman using a chakki to mill wheat and a couple strolling by."

Avari says his favourite panel is the farmer. "The farmer is shown holding up the land - physically and metaphorically." By choosing to highlight the farmer, Avari explains, the artist "is forcing his viewers to focus on the foundational importance of rural India in the wake of the new nation, even as the country underwent urbanisation."

The painting, says Anand, realises Gandhi's vision. "Gandhi said that India's soul lives in its villages and Husain captures that soul on canvas. His name is synonymous with Indian art." But despite this fame, Anand admits that Husain's work has been relatively underpriced till now. "When you compared the prices to his contemporaries, they were always lower, but this sale is going to change that."

Perhaps it will encourage many Indians, who have been holding on to sketches and paintings that the flamboyant and ever-generous Husain saab gifted to them, to bring out their bounty.