M. F. Husain, in full Maqbool Fida Husain, was an Indian Cubist artist and a founding member of The Progressive Artists Group of Bombay (PAG). He created a great number of brightly coloured works depicting horses, urban landscapes, the Bollywood star Madhuri Dixit, and nude Hindu goddesses. Even though he worked principally as a painter, he was also known for his drawings and his work as a photographer, printmaker, and filmmaker.
Background
Husain was born in Pandharpur, Bombay Presidency, British India (now Pandharpur, Maharashtra, India), on September 17, 1915; the son of Zunaib and Fida Husain who hailed from a Sulaymani Bohra family. He lost his mother when he was only one and a half year old. After a few months, his father married another woman and moved to Indore.
Education
M. F. Husain was interested in painting since an early age and tried to find solace in the art. Uncared for at home, he spent most of his time hanging about on the streets from when he was seven or eight years old. Husain completed his schooling in Indore.
For a few years in his teenage years, Husain stayed in Baroda, where he learned the art of calligraphy and practised the Kulfic khat with its geometric forms. He also learned to write poetry. Thanks to his exposure to calligraphy, he gradually developed interest towards art and made a decision to become an artist. He moved to Bombay (now Mumbai) in 1935 and became a student of the famous Sir Jamsetjee Jeejebhoy School of Art.
Husain's initial years in Bombay (now Mumbai) were very difficult. Poor and lonely, he eventually managed to find a job of painting billboards and posters for Bollywood movies. By the early 1930s, Hindi cinema was prosperous producing as many as 200 films per year and the advertising market was badly in need of high-quality painters. Husain used this chance to take care of his daily needs. Around this time he also worked for a toy company; he created designs for toys.
He strained for several years before getting his first success. Husain held his first serious exhibition in 1947 at the Bombay Art Society. As India gained independence in August of 1947, the partition of India and Pakistan had a solid impact on his career.
During that time, a group of young artists, including M. F. Husain, struggled to break the age-old tradition of the Bengal school of art. The artists desired to encourage artists to embrace modernism and popularize Indian art on the international scenario. The political chaos and violence following the independence of India became the catalyst that caused the forming of The Progressive Artist's Group in Bombay in December 1947. Soon, the movement received recognition and the group grew in strength, which ultimately became a turning point in the history of Indian art.
Husain became very famous over the next few years and explored several topics in his paintings. He was good at painting grim topics as well as in creating humorous and caustic works. The major themes of his paintings were related to prominent personalities like Mother Teresa and Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi. He drew inspiration from Hindu epics, the Ramayana and the Mahabharata. Paintings of Indian urban and rural life were also his typical motifs.
During the early 1950s, M. F. Husain visited Europe for the first time and did a barefoot grand tour. He held his first solo exhibition in Zurich in the year 1952. While in Europe he met such renowned painters as Matisse, Picasso, and Paul Klee. He was really impressed by Klee’s knowledge of Indian philosophy. The artist displayed his artworks in the United States for the first time in 1964.
In the late 1960s, M. F. Husain became interested in film-making and created his first film titled "Through the Eyes of a Painter" in 1967, which was shown at the Berlin International Film Festival. A few years later, he was a special guest at the Sao Paulo Biennial (Brazil) in 1971.
Husain produced many remarkable paintings throughout the 1970s and 1980s, and also shot several films. Some of the major works he painted during this time were "Vishwamitra" (1973), and "Passage Through Human Space", a series of 45 watercolours which he finished in the mid-1970s.
Though Husain enjoyed fame and respect during the initial phase of his career, a large portion of his painting career was full of controversies. Various Hindu nationalist groups often targeted him for hurting religious sentiments. For example, he was accused of depicting Hindu deities in unconventional ways that were unacceptable to traditional Hindus. Subsequently, eight criminal complaints were lodged against Husain. Later on, his house was attacked by Hindu fundamentalist groups like Bajrang Dal and his artworks were vandalized in 1998.
His painting of Bharatmata (Mother India) as a nude woman also lighted up considerable controversy and his film "Meenaxi: A Tale of Three Cities" (2004) exasperated certain Muslim organizations like All-India Muslim Council, Milli Council, and Raza Academy. He even began receiving death threats following which he left India. He generally lived in Doha and spent his summers in London. For the last years of his life, Husain lived in Doha and London, staying away from India, but expressing a strong desire to return, despite fears of being killed.
During M. F. Husain's stay in Qatar, he was commissioned by Sheikha Mozah Bint Nasser Al Missned, Qatar's first lady, to create two paintings connected with the history of Arab civilization and the history of Indian civilization. In 2008 Husain was commissioned to paint 32 large-scale paintings depicting the history of India. He could only complete eight before his death.
(A 2004 Hindi film directed by M.F. Husain and starring Ta...)
2004
painting
Untitled
(Devdas Series)
Untitled
(Raj series)
Untitled (Lady with Tanpura)
Folklore Kerala - IV
Varanasi III
Ganesh
Frolicking Ganesh
Living Goddess
Eternal Mother
The Lost Princesses
Untitled (Ganesha and Parvati)
Allah
British Raj
Gandhi - Man of Peace
Women from Yemen
Camel
Postcard
Horse's Head
Untitled (Portrait of Ibn Zainab)
Drawing
Rajasthani Women
Folklore Kerala - II
Female Figure
Ganesh
Untitled (Husain's Family)
Fanā Baqā
Untitled (Woman at Work)
Folklore Kerala - I
Untitled (Woman Playing Sitar)
Untitled (Portrait of an Umbrella Series)
Untitled
Tonga
Dada
Untitled
Yā Haiyyo Yā Qaium
Untitled (Veena Player)
Red Landscape
Black Hill
African Woman
The Preacher at Mecca
Hai-Seen-Ye-Noon
Untitled (Lovers)
Untitled
Lord Ganesha and Mata Parvati
Untitled (Toy Horse)
Lady with Veena
Untitled (Self Portrait)
Untitled (Kashmiri Couple)
Untitled
Gajagamini
Untitled (Blue Figure and Tiger)
Woman with Spider
Untitled (Bundi Landscape)
Rajasthan Landscape
Untitled
Blue Nursery with Bambi
Untitled
Untitled
Qāf
Untitled
Horses
Untitled
Untitled (Portrait of Sonali Das Gupta, wife of Roberto Rossellini)
Postcard
Bhopal
Portrait of Jamini Roy
Untitled
Kobra
Untitled
Untitled
Untitled
Calligraphic Drawing
Untitled (Portrait of Chand Bibi)
Woman in Red
Portrait of Lal Bahadur Shastri
Two Horses
Hai-Seen-Hai-Noon
Wasteland
Untitled
Views
Quotations:
"When I begin to paint, hold the sky in your hands as the stretch of my canvas is unknown to me."
"I think you don't do work for controversy alone, and whenever you do new work which people don't understand and they say it is done to create controversy."
"They can put me in a jungle. Still, I can create."
"I kept on trying to use so many media and ideas in my work because our horizon is so vast and Indian culture is so rich that I think what we are today, culturally, we have a unique position and I don't think one lifetime is enough to encompass it."
"I only give expression to the instincts from my soul."
"I am like a folk painter. Paint and move ahead."
"All this talk about inspiration and moment is nonsense."
"Wherever I find love I will accept it."
"Mostly people are ignorant, what is the language of painting. You know, they're ignorant. It is so difficult to make them aware, but time will teach them."
Membership
In 1947 M. F. Husain became a member of the Bombay Progressive Artists' Group.
Bombay Progressive Artists' Group
,
India
1947
Personality
Husain was a great admirer of actress Madhuri Dixit and even considered her as his muse.
In 2010 M. F. Husain was conferred Qatari nationality, so he surrendered his Indian passport.
Quotes from others about the person
Shashi Tharoor: "[M. F. Husain's] life and work are beginning to serve as an allegory for the changing modalities of the secular in modern India – and the challenges that the narrative of the nation holds for many of us. This is the opportune and crucial time to honour him for his dedication and courage to the cultural renaissance of his beloved country."
Bal Thackeray: "He only slipped up on the depiction of Hindu gods and goddesses. Otherwise, he was happy and content in his field. If his demise is a loss for modern art, then so be it. May Allah give him peace."
Interests
Artists
Amrita Sher-Gil, George Keyt, Emil Nolde, Oskar Kokoschka
Connections
M. F. Husain got married to Fazila Bibi in 1941. The couple went on to have six children, two daughters, Raisa Husain and Aqueela Husain, and four sons, Shamshad Hussain, Mustafa Husain, Owais Husain, Shafaat Husain. His wife supported him devotedly through the ups and downs of his career. Fazila Bibi passed away in 1998.
Husain fell in love with a woman called Maria while he was married to Fazila and he even wanted to marry her. However, Maria did not accept his proposal and they broke up.
Father:
Fida Husain
Mother:
Zunaib Husain
Spouse:
Fazila Bibi
Son:
Shamshad Hussain
Daughter:
Raisa Husain
Son:
Mustafa Husain
Son:
Owais Husain
Son:
Shafaat Husain
Daughter:
Aqueela Husain
Mistress:
Maria
References
M.F. Husain: A Pictorial Tribute
In this richly photographed book, Pradeep Chandra pays tribute to M. F. Husain, an artist who he has been photographing for decades.
2012
Barefoot across the Nation: M F Husain and the Idea of India
This book is the first inter-disciplinary engagement with the work of Maqbool Fida Husain, arguably India’s most iconic contemporary artist today, whose life and work are intimately entangled with the career of independent India as a democratic, secular and multi-ethnic nation.