India’s greatest painter of modern times, the snowy-haired and bearded, barefoot Maqbool Fida Husain — who died in self-exile in London four years ago – is a forgotten figure on his birth centenary
Renowned equally for his artistry and eccentricities, the internationally acclaimed artist is credited with catapulting Indian art to the world arena — though he was hounded by a spate of controversies virtually all his life.
Once hailed as India’s ‘Pablo Picasso’ by the Forbes magazine, Husain is largely remembered among the Indian masses for his paintings depicting prancing horses, women subjects, historical figures and nude paintings of Hindu gods and goddesses, besides other events.
His portrayal of horses with their “tremendous lines and the majestic way that the horses held their heads high” – as Sotheby’s specialist in South Asian modern and contemporary art Priyanka Mathew once said – were held amongst his most sought after and highly-priced collections.
It was way back in the 1930s that the tall, young Husain rejected a prospective job as a tailor’s assistant to paint cinema hoardings in Mumbai for a paltry 25-35 paise per square foot — and this ultimately proved to be his art school, college and university.
Earning recognition quickly, he joined, in 1948, the famous artist F.N. Souza’s Progress Artists Group, a conglomeration of aspiring young painters with a desire to create an Indian version of modernist art in those struggling days of India as a newly-independent country.
Picture Credit : Google