Ebullient and eccentric at the same time, barefoot painter Maqbool Fida Husain took Indian art to the global stage with his cubist-inspired modern art but was riled in controversy with his paintings on Hindu deities.
Synonymous with contemporary Indian art, the painter was described as the “Pablo Picasso” of India by Forbes magazine.
Born on September 17, 1915 in Pandharpur in Maharashtra, Husain was mainly a self-taught artist and made ends meet in his initial days by painting cinema hoardings in Mumbai.
Husain had once recounted that “We were paid barely four or six annas per square foot. That is, for a 6x10 feet canvas, we earned a few rupees.
“And apart from the New Theatre distributor, the others did not pay us at all. As soon as I earned a little bit I used to take off for Surat, Baroda and Ahmedabad to paint landscapes”.
Given his meagre earnings, Husain tried other jobs and one of the best paying was a toy factory where he designed and built toys.
The painter, who courted controversy over his paintings of Hindu gods, had been living abroad in self-exile since 2006.
His paintings on Hindu goddesses — Durga and Saraswati — invited the wrath of Hindu groups. His house was attacked in 1998 by Hindu groups and his art works were vandalised.
In February 2006, Husain was charged with hurting sentiments of people because of his nude portraits of Hindu gods and goddesses.
A series of cases were brought against Husain and a courtcase related to the alleged obscene depiction of Hindu goddesses in his paintings resulted in issuance of a non-bailable warrant against him after he failed to respond to summons. There were also death threats.
Husain, who left the country stating that “matters are so legally complicated that I have been advised not to return home”, had expressed a strong desire to come back, despite fears that he may be arrested in connection with the cases against him.
The artist had become well-known in the late 1940s and joined the Progressive Artists’ Group, founded by Francis Newton Souza in 1947. The group was formed to explore a new idiom for Indian art and was a clique of young artists wanting to break with the nationalist traditions established by the Bengal School of Art.
Honoured with the prestigious Padma Shree, Padma Bhushan, Padma Vibhushan, Husain was the highest paid painter in India with his single canvases fetching up to $2 million at a Christie’s auction. Husain’s Battle of Ganga and Jamuna: Mahabharata 12, fetched $1.6 million in 2008, setting a world record at Christie’s South Asian Modern and Contemporary Art sale.
He had also worked on a few films, including “Gaja Gamini” with his muse actress Madhuri Dixit who was the subject of a series of his paintings which he signed as Fida.
After a tribute to Dixit, the painter went on to make Meenaxi: A Tale of Three Cities with Tabu. He had also made paintings of actress Amrita Rao.