Maqbool Fida Husain (1915-2011)

Acquired in Paris in the early 1980s

Good overall condition. Small loss of paint in impasto in two areas of yellow, upper center, and in oxen lower left. Colors slightly deeper than in catalogue illustration.
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Many of Husain's early paintings were inspired by scenes of rural India, discovered during his travels. The theme of the farmer and his family who form the backbone of the Indian nation is an integral part of Husain's visual vocabulary.

"There is an exalted dignity about the people who inhabit Husain's canvases. Peasants, workers, craftsmen, women toiling in fields or huddled together in conversation all have self-contained poise, the stoic patience and grace associated with the common people. He captures their postures and lineaments their distinctive ethos and culture ... not by physiognomy or costume alone are they differentiated, but in their total bearing and presence," (Alkazi, M.F. Husain: The Modern Artist and Tradition, New Delhi, 1978, p. 22).  

Husain was different from his contemporaries—artists such as F.N. Souza or S.H. Raza—in choosing to remain in India. Even so, he traveled widely throughout the subcontintent, from the Himalayas to Kerala, to experience the landscape and various cultures of India. Critic Yashodhara Dalmia compares Husain's paintings from this phase of his career with the rural themes of Amrita Sher-Gil, explaining: "Husain drew from the classical, the miniature and folk and attempted to meld it into a language which formulated the present. It allowed him to express a perceived reality which, while being seamless, mythical and vast, was at the same time hurtling towards industrialization and modernization. Husain took Amrita's legacy further toward a more authentic stage. His villagers are not particularly beautiful; but surrounded by their tools, their animals ... they appear more truly alive, secure and rooted in their environment," (Dalmia, The Making of Modern Indian Art: The Progressives, Delhi, 2001, p. 107).