Whopping $401,000 for Bhupen Khakhar's work at auction

Artist Bhupen Khakhar's "American Survey Officer" fetched $401,000 at Sotheby's Modern and Contemporary South Asian Art sale Friday.

A private Indian collector bought Sayed Haider Raza's "La Forge" for $305,000 while an "Untitled" painting by late M.F. Husain went for $245,000 in the auction.

Khakhar's work was being auctioned for the first time. A private collector gave it to the auction house and it is from the artist's early days.

This work defines a critical moment in his career as he developed a local and idiosyncratic language for pop art in India.

"We saw strong prices for high calibre works by senior modern artists, including Khakhar, Husain and Francis Newton Souza, reinforcing the quest for quality in the field," Priyanka Mathew, head of Sotheby's sales of Modern and Contemporary South Asian Art in New York, said in a statement.

"Khakhar's work sold for almost double the pre-sale estimate," she added.