Kiran nadar snags husain art for rs 118 crore

Art collector Kiran Nadar has splashed out Rs 118 crore to claim M F Husain’s “Untitled (Gram Yatra),” a canvas that smashed records at Christie’s in New York’s Rockefeller Center. The painting, a sprawling 14-foot tribute to India’s rural pulse, had been stashed away in Norway for decades—out of sight, not out of mind—until this week’s auction hauled it back into the spotlight.

Nadar, married to HCL’s big gun Shiv Nadar, outbid the pack for the 1954 masterpiece, a vivid mash-up of village life’s raw beat—bullock carts, dancers, flour-pounders—etched in Husain’s bold strokes. I picture her standing firm in the bidding war, a bridge champ turned art maven, her eye locked on a prize that’s now the priciest modern Indian work ever sold. The sale’s buzz hit loud—Rs 118 crore dwarfs Amrita Sher-Gil’s old record of Rs 61.8 crore.

The painting’s journey adds grit—from a Norwegian hospital’s quiet corridor, gifted by a surgeon in 1964, to this global stage, its proceeds now fueling medical training. A Delhi gallery owner might nod, sipping chai, knowing Nadar’s Kiran Nadar Museum of Art could soon house this gem. Husain’s legacy just got heavier, and India’s art scene feels the weight.