Maqbool Fida Husain

Bombay, Bombay Art Society, Sixty Fourth Annual Exhibition, 1954-1955

Atlanta, Georgia, Oglethorpe University Museum of Art, Goddess, Lion, Peasant, Priest, March - May, 2011

New York, Rubin Museum of Art, Modernist Art from India: The Body Unbound, November 2011- April 2012

Bombay Art Society, Sixty Fourth Annual Exhibition, 1954-1955, illustration p. 15

R. Brown, Goddess, Lion, Peasant, Priest, Oglethorpe University Museum of Art, Atlanta, Georgia, 2010, illustration p. 43

B. Citron, Modernist Art from India, Rubin Museum of Art, illustration unpaginated

The painting was cleaned and consolidated by Hamish Dewar when first sold. Minor spots of paint loss have been restored on her left eye and above her right and left eye brow. Two small spots on her chin and two further areas on her right upper arm. Restoration to one area on the middle finger of her right hand and one further small spot of re-painting just below the signature and date. There are small spots of pigment loss visible across the surface, particularly around the edges of t he painting.
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“…This painting of a quietly seated woman demonstrates many of the stylistic techniques Husain has used throughout his career. The space is flattened but retains its texture; the colour is varied and layered, so that portions of the painting glow and draw our eye. Husain also works with strong outlines and simple forms. This painting is unusual in its specificity of the face and the foreshortening of the toes, which peep out from underneath her opposite leg. Husain often turns to women in his work; singly or in groups, and everyday figures as well as goddesses. (Rebecca Brown, Goddess, Lion, Peasant, Priest, Oglethorpe University Museum of Art, 2010, p. 42) Husain uses form and colour in this painting to elevate the everyday to the illumination of a goddess. The ‘flattened space’ of her background is something she transcends through her color and light; she is of it, and beyond it. The articulation of her face from the darkness, and the boldness of the color of her cloth, give an honesty to her presence and a beauty only Husain can distill.