Important Notice

"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."
- M F HUSAIN

M F Husain is perhaps among India's most prolific modern artists whose unique visual idiom left an indelible mark on the history of... "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."
- M F HUSAIN

M F Husain is perhaps among India's most prolific modern artists whose unique visual idiom left an indelible mark on the history of Indian art. A largely self-taught artist, he began his career painting cinema billboards and then making toys, before joining the Progressive Artists' Group in 1947. During this formative period, right after Independence, Husain travelled extensively, assimilating the techniques, colours and styles of Jain and Basohli painting, the sensuous forms of Mathura sculpture, and the energy and fluid lines of Chinese calligraphy. His encounter with the works of European modern masters including Klee, Picasso, Matisse and Modigliani helped him hone his own intuitions and perceptions regarding colour, form, line and symbolism. These various stylistic influences, combined with his own rootedness in India, led him to invent a new aesthetic vocabulary of modernity. "And in doing so, he was to become a legend in his lifetime, a man who delivers the common man from the ordinariness of his existence to the international arena." (Yashodhara Dalmia, "A Metaphor for Modernity," The Making of Modern Indian Art: The Progressives, Oxford University Press, New Delhi, 2001, p. 101)

Husain's paintings of horses are arguably among the best known in his oeuvre. He first began painting this subject in the 1950s and revisited the leitmotif representative of power, passion and freedom-throughout his artistic career. His preoccupation with this subject developed from a wide range of encounters with the animal during early childhood experiences in Indore, where he saw horses drawing tongas or in Muharram processions. Later, his study of horses from the Chinese Sung dynasty, the terracotta folk traditions of Bankura and cave art, and the work of Western artists such as Franz Marc and Mario Marini added nuance to his precise lines and the portrayal of complex emotions. Husain incorporates these influences seamlessly to create paintings in his own inimitable style. His horses are archetypes and "... subterranean creatures. Their nature is not intellectualised: it is rendered as sensation or as abstract movement, with a capacity to stir up vague premonitions and passions, in a mixture of ritualistic fear and exultant anguish." (Richard Bartholomew and Shiv S Kapur, Husain, New York: Harry N Abrams, Inc., 1971, p. 43)

Husain's masterful capacity in capturing the moods and nuances of these creatures endows them with new forms, meanings and resonances that transcend realism or prosaic associations. "The horses are rampant or galloping; the manes, the fury, the working buttocks, the prancing legs, and the strong neighing heads with dilated nostrils are blocks of colour which are vivid or tactile or are propelled in their significant progression by strokes of the brush or sweeps of the palette knife. The activity depicted is transformed in the activity of paint... 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." (Bartholomew and Kapur, p. 20)

The present lot depicts two majestic horses in shades of white and grey galloping against a lush green field-like background. The horses are rendered in strong lines which break the surface, giving them "the feel of armour, a technique Husain borrows from Chinese painting traditions. The present lot exemplifies Husain's ability to harness the vigour and elegance of horses through a masterful use of line and colour. Light and shadow add another dimension to the bucking and rearing horses whose frenzied energy is barely contained within the painting. "Husain's painted horses do not just bear majestic stateliness and striking beauty but also come alive in every mood, situation and form. Their forceful movement conveys so much that it carries us away with it." (Rashda Siddiqui, In Conversation with Husain Paintings, New Delhi: Books Today, 2001, p. 112)

The present lot represents "some of his finest work and demonstrate[s] the power of his draftsmanship, his deep understanding of the myths associated with the horse in the multi-faceted Indian artistic and cultural tradition and his talent to invest them with a new contemporary meaning." (K Bikram Singh, Maqbool Fida Husain, New Delhi: Rahul & Art, 2008, p. 192)

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