M. F. Husain : Picasso of India Dies as a Qatari Citizen
By Dr A. Khan
Chicago, IL
“We do not grow old, we grow riper.”
- Pablo Picasso
Maqbool Fida Hussain, the master artist popularly known as M F Husain, India’s Picasso, passed away on June 9 in London, at the ripe age of 95 after painting 60,000 masterpieces. In 2006 M F Husain left India and since then lived in Dubai and Qatar in self-exile due to threats from Hindu extremists. In 1970s M F Husain depicted Hindu deities Durga and Saraswati , and Mahabharata in a number of his thematic paintings. But in the 1990s Hindu extremist organizations considered those paintings as derogatory and blasphemous.
In 1998 M F Husain was attacked, his exhibitions were ransacked, legal battles were started to move him out of his house. When the intensity and frequency of legal battles increased and became intolerable, aging M. F. Husain quietly left India, the world’s largest democracy, and arrived in Dubai and later moved to Qatar. Stating the reason for his departure he said, “Matters are so legally complicated that I have been advised not to return home.”
M F Husain believed that the people who were criticizing his work lacked the art aptitude. In a recent interview he was asked why he had apologized for his art. M F Husain replied: “ Never. I have never apologized for my art. I stand by it totally. What I said was that I have painted my canvases — including those of gods and goddesses— with deep love and conviction, and in celebration. If in doing that, I have hurt anyone’s feelings, I am sorry. That is all. I do not love art less, I love humanity more.” (Personality, Tehelka Magazine, Vol. 5, Issue 4, dated Feb 02, 2008).
M. F. Hussain pioneered the modern art in India. He mixed the traditional art with the modern art and became very popular with his blended approach. He became the first Indian artist to fetch up to $2 million for his paintings at Christie’s auction.
Maqbool Fida Husain was born on September 17, 1915 in Pandharpur, Maharashtra. He lost his mother, Zainab, when he was only 18 months old. His father Fida Husain remarried and moved to Indore, where Maqbol received his early education. At age twenty, he moved to Bombay and took admission in the J.J. School of Art. To earn a living he started to paint posters for the cinema houses. He received meager wages for his painstaking efforts. Recalling those days Maqbol had said: “That is, for a 6x10 feet canvas, we earned a few rupees…And apart from the New Theatre distributor, the others did not pay us at all. As soon as I earned a little bit I used to take off for Surat, Baroda and Ahmedabad to paint landscapes.” To make ends meet, he did odd jobs. He also worked for a toy factory where he designed and developed toys.
In the 1940s M F Husain was recognized at the national level when he joined the Progressive Artists' Group, which was established by Francis Newton Souza in 1947. The group was established to find a new direction for Indian art by moving away from the traditions and norms set by the Bengal School of Art. In 1952, M F Husain held his first exhibition at Zurich.
M F Husain also experimented with films for expressing his creativity. His film “Through the Eyes of a Painter” won the Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival. He also made two films (' Gaja Gamini and Meenaxi: A Tale of Three Cities) with Bollywood actress Madhuri Dixit. But the films became controversial and did not prove to be lucrative ventures for Husain. The Indian government recognized his talent and awarded him Padma Shree, Padma Bhushan , and Padma Vibhushan . In 1986 Indian Prime minister Rajiv Ghandi nominated him to the upper house of the Indian Parliament , where he attended sessions for six years.
M F Husain had a unique style of creating his masterpieces; he worked barefoot, used long brushes and big canvases. His 60,000 creations include Gaja Gamini, Doll Marriage, Birth of Buddha, British Raj , Ganesh, Horses, Sufi Series, Mother Teresa , and Mahabharata. In his last days he was working in Doha on two large projects, Indian civilization and the history of Arab civilization, sponsored by the ruler of Qatar.
Husain’s wife Fazila predeceased him and he is survived by their five children, two daughters, Raisa and Aqueela, and, three sons, Mustafa, Shamshad and Owais.
M F Husain is dead, but many Indians are still pondering about the status of India’s Picasso. A Hindu website is conducting a survey to determine the status of M F Husain by asking the question: Does anti-Hindu and anti-Bharat late M F Husain deserve any respect? Whatever results the survey may yield, one thing is very obvious - M F Husain has been acknowledged by the global art lovers as one of the great artists of the modern era!
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