MF Husain painting auctioned for ₹18.5cr
MUMBAI: A 20-ft-long composition by the late MF Husain, titled Voices, sold for ₹18.47 crore on Sunday, setting a new record for a work by the artist at auction.
The oil-on-canvas went under the hammer for the first time; Voices has been in private collection since it was finished in 1958. Thought it fell short of its reserve price by about ₹1 crore, it still broke the existing record of ₹13.44 crore set by Husain’s Battle of Ganga and Jamuna: Mahabharata 12 at Saffronart’s March 2020 auction of items seized from diamantaire Nirav Modi.
The two-day AstaGuru auction that concluded on Sunday, titled Husain, featured 36 lots, including toys, jewellery and tapestry designed and co-created by Husain. Voices was created after the Progressive Artists’ Group that Husain co-founded had disbanded and the artist was beginning to achieve global fame.
An untitled (Bhagavad Gita) painting from 1994 was the second-highest-selling lot. It fetched ₹4.34 crore, followed by Last Supper (2005) which sold for ₹3.26 core.
According to the Artery India Database, the auction also set the record for the most expensive work on paper by the artist — a 1956 ink-on-paper titled Between the Spider and the Lamp, a rare preparatory sketch for one of his most well-known works, sold for ₹83.4 lakh.
“Contrary to expectation, there has been a spate of enthusiastic bidding at auctions recorded post-March,” said Arvind Vijaymohan, CEO of the art research firm Artery India. “This could be on account of euphoric buying to ease the Covid-induced locked-in gloom, or more likely new capital entering the market and being deployed.”
(All prices are inclusive of buyer’s premium).