Akmal Husain

Acquired from Dhoomimal Art Centre, New Delhi 

There is raised craquelure throughout the surface most notably in areas of lighter paint. Additionally there is minor frame rubbing in upper left and right corners. Notable cracking along right edge.
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After studying painting at Visva Bharati, Santiniketan, Akmal Husain was awarded a scholarship to study printmaking at the Kyoto Seika University in Kyoto, Japan. Husain went on to exhibit his works both in Japan and India and was awarded the Sovana Banik Scholarship by Kala Bhavana Santiniketan and the National Academy Award from Lalit Kala Akademi, New Delhi.

The essential theme is the splendour and abundance of Nature, frequently interposed with a solitary figure representing the wandering soul. The reminiscence of his childhood spent in Assam, and his art education days in Santiniketan, motivates him in his pursuit for realising the resonance between the Nature outside and inner nature of mankind. The analysis of Akmal’s works is rather simple, unburdened with any art historical complexes or theories. The genesis of this is explained by this romantic artist, "I see and perceive the world through naive eyes, you could say, like children discovering the secrets of Nature for the first time. For me, art works like an armchair for rest far from the maddening hustles and bustles of city life, where one's exposed to the tranquil Nature and the serenity within." (About the artist, Colors Palette Art Gallery, http://colors-palette.com/artsidetails.php?artistId=MjE=)

In many ways, his naivety is reminiscent of veteran artist, Bhupen Khakhar, who for a large part of his illustrious career, deliberately and naively painted people and places from his surroundings. A direct comparison is Khakhar’s American Survey Officer, 1969, in which we see a group of three miniature-scaled men standing beside a hilly and densely colourful forest. Akmal’s work here with its idyllic emerald landscape rendered in a Henri Rousseau style with its intense yet balanced use of colours is almost a tribute to the master from Baroda.