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Suddenly, a black horse noticed me.
He paused, turned back and said to me,
“Go forth and see the world.”
Indeed it is true.
Seeing the world is to understand one’s
own existence.
Husain knows this well.
Hence he never stays at one place for long.
— (Rashda Siddiqui, In Conversation with Husain Paintings, New Delhi: Books Today, 2001, p.114)

The horse was a lifelong source of fascination for M F Husain... Suddenly, a black horse noticed me.
He paused, turned back and said to me,
“Go forth and see the world.”
Indeed it is true.
Seeing the world is to understand one’s
own existence.
Husain knows this well.
Hence he never stays at one place for long.
— (Rashda Siddiqui, In Conversation with Husain Paintings, New Delhi: Books Today, 2001, p.114)

The horse was a lifelong source of fascination for M F Husain and one of his most recognisable subjects. His renditions of the creature across his oeuvre were an amalgamation of diverse influences, including Indian folk and classical traditions, his travels, and the socio- political milieu of the time. This afforded him the freedom to take his subjects out of their traditional contexts and imbue them with a new meaning, giving them a sense of timelessness. Speaking of these works, he said, “Art has to evolve from your very being, like my horses... I see them as ageless and immortal. They draw chariots in the great epics, they stand proudly in the poorest stables, they are embodiments of strength like the dragons of China.” (M F Husain and Khalid Mohammed, Where Art Thou, Mumbai: M F Husain Foundation, 2002, p. 23)

As he established himself as an artist in Bombay in the 1940s onwards, Husain travelled across India and found further inspiration in various folk art and crafts, including the Bankura horse of West Bengal and the horses in the chariot of the Sun God at the Konark temple in Orissa. In his early works from the 1950s, his horses also closely resembled the Duldul, the effigy of Imam Hussain’s horse that he would see being carried during Muharram processions as a young boy in Indore. However, it was during his first trip to China as part of the World Peace Congress in Beijing in 1952 that “he found what he was seeking—a means to imbue his horses with the expressive quality of line and form that matched his imagination.” (Susan S Bean, “East Meets East in Husain’s Horses,” Lightning by M F Husain, New York: TamarindArt in association with Asia Society Museum New York and Mapin Publishing, 2019, p. 42)

During this visit, Husain met Chinese artist Xu Beihong who was known for his paintings of horses. He was particularly taken by the vitality and expressiveness of a monumental painting of a thousand horses in motion at the artist’s studio. Inspired, “Husain infused his horses with a new vigor, an enlivened energy of movement combining dragon-like elements of masculinity with feminine grace.” (Bean, p. 42) This influence is evident in the present lot, in which Husain uses vigorous brushstrokes to portray a pair of galloping horses, the motion of their bodies palpable in their outstretched legs, arched necks, raised manes, and flared nostrils. Husain heightens the focus on the creature through a monochrome palette. Though he uses oil, the medium acquires the intensity and lightness of a Chinese ink painting.

The dexterity of Husain’s brushwork, as seen in the present lot, can also be compared to that of Qi Baishi, another Chinese artist he met on that same trip in 1952. “Husain, predisposed by his early experience with the aesthetic and spiritual power of Islamic calligraphy, was deeply impressed by the virtuosity of Qi’s brush strokes, and came to think of him as the Matisse of East Asia.” (Bean, p. 42)

As seen in the power and fury of the subjects of the present lot, Husain’s horses from the 1970s tap into a deep, restless energy that was only hinted at in his works from the 1950s and 1960s. According to writer and professor Daniel Herwitz, this was likely a response to the tumultuous political atmosphere prevalent in India at the time. The artist also imbued his works with a personal symbolism. In the present lot, he creates a mysterious association between the pair of horses and moon, the latter perhaps a reference to the concept of shunya (the void from which the universe was created) or the collective consciousness of mankind. Note critics Richard Bartholomew and Shiv Kapur, “When we look at these creatures we must remember that the animal is not the subject of Husain’s painting; it is the daemonic principle that he depicts, and to him it is neither good nor bad... the horses... have become symbols of power and pursuit, or of mysterious encounters.” (Richard Bartholomew and Shiv S Kapur, Husain, New York: Harry N Abrams, Inc, 1972, p. 20)

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