Hello, my name is Paul Priestley. Welcome to Artist in School, the home of art history
for young people and for interested amateurs. This film is the second in my brief encounters
series which looks at artists who are not necessarily world famous, but are really ,really
interesting. Today’s artist is the Indian artist M F Husain, brilliant guy, brilliant.
Let’s find out more about him now shall we, come on.
Maqboul Fida Hussain was born on the 17th of September 1915, although some records suggest
it was 1913 in Pandharpur in Maharashtra in India.
Hussein lost his mother when he was a young boy, and subsequently his paternal grandmother
looked after him. Later, he was sent to live with his maternal grandfather at Siddhpur
in Gujarat. Here Husain learnt to read Urdu and he became fascinated with the geometric
forms of Kufic Calligraphy and this sparked his interest in drawing. Unfortunately, instead
of completing his school education he was apprenticed to a tailor, but he began to paint
in his spare time. At the age of 20 he went to Bombay, now known as Mumbai, and began
studying at the Sir J. J. School of Art. In 1937 he decided to become an artist and concentrate
on painting. Times were hard and he lived in a cheap room in a slum area of Bombay supporting
himself with lots of odd jobs. He painted billboards promoting Bollywood Films, he designed
nursery furniture, cots and rocking horses, painting them with wonderful coloured designs.
When he could afford it, he would travel to the countryside and paint landscapes.
His big break came in the late 1940’s when he won a prize at the Annual exhibition of
Bombay Art Society. This brought his work to the attention of the influential Indian
artist Francis Newton Souza. In 1947 Souza invited Husain to become a founder member
of the Bombay Progressive Artist’s group. The group was formed just 4 months after Indian
Independence amid the turmoil and carnage of partition of India into two countries,
India and Pakistan. The group’s manifesto stated their intention
was to "paint with absolute freedom of content and technique,” it was almost anarchic in
some ways. They wanted to create a new Indian avant-garde that would take Indian inspired
art to the rest of the world. During this time Husain’s reputation grew and he held
his first solo exhibition outside of India in 1952 in Zurich, Switzerland. Later, in
1964 he held his first exhibition the United States, in India House in New York.
The majority of his painting were created in a modified Cubist style and are usually
sarcastic and funny as well as being serious and sombre. Sometimes at the same time. He
often painted a series of paintings around a topic covering themes as diverse as Mahatma
Gandhi, Mother Teresa, the Ramayana, one of the two epic poems of India, the British Raj,
and Indian urban and rural life. His great love though was for horses, their free spirit
and lively nature inspired him and formed the basis of many paintings throughout his
lifetime. During the early part of his career, Husain
enjoyed great fame and respect both in India and other parts of the world. In 1971 he was
a specially invited, along with Pablo Picasso, to the Sao Paulo Biennial in Brazil. Later
in 1973 he was awarded The Padma Bhushan, the third-highest civil award in India for
distinguished service of a high order and in 1991 the Padma Vibhushan, which is the
second-highest civil award awarded for exceptional and distinguished service.
But the latter part of his career was mired in controversy. Husain was a secular Muslim
and in 1996, a Hindi monthly magazine published an article headlined "M.F. Husain: A Painter
or Butcher". The article included a number of his controversial paintings produced back
in the 1970s, which depicted Hindu goddesses as nudes. As a result, eight criminal complaints
were filed against him. Although these were dismissed by the Indian High Court in 2004,
it did not stop his house being attacked and his 2006 exhibition in London, being closed
after two men attacked his paintings. Also in February 2006 India Today, a national
English weekly published an advertisement entitled "Art For Mission Kashmir”, the
advert contained and image of Husain’s painting of Mother India as a nude woman, posed across
a map of India. Subsequently, the painting itself was withdrawn from auction and death
threats followed, so he decided to leave India. He moved to Doha, Qatar where he would live
during the winter, spending his summers in London. He did this for the rest of his life
often expressing a strong desire to return to India but never quite achieving it.
Whilst in Qatar he was commissioned by Qatar’s first lady, to paint the History of Arab civilisation
and in 2008 to produce 32 paintings depicting the History of India. Unfortunately, he only
completed 8 of the paintings before he died on the 9th June 2011 in London. He was 95
years old and is buried in Brookwood Cemetery in Surrey, England. Known throughout his life
simply as M F Hussain, he is often referred to as the ‘Picasso of India’ and despite
the controversy he regarded as one of the most celebrated and internationally recognised
Indian artists of the 20th century. Thank you for watching, I hope you’ve enjoyed
my little film and learnt lots about the Indian artist M F Husain. If you have then please
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