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Lot 66

 

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“I’m merely trying to collate my experience of 60 years through the paintings. Through men, women, plants and birds...I’m not narrating any story...I’m not concerned with certain types here; instead I’m aspiring to convey my vision to speak...I didn’t sit down, brood that I have to do this theme or that. If you become overly conscious about what you’re doing, then artificiality, a fake-ness creeps in.” – M F HUSAIN

One of the... “I’m merely trying to collate my experience of 60 years through the paintings. Through men, women, plants and birds...I’m not narrating any story...I’m not concerned with certain types here; instead I’m aspiring to convey my vision to speak...I didn’t sit down, brood that I have to do this theme or that. If you become overly conscious about what you’re doing, then artificiality, a fake-ness creeps in.” – M F HUSAIN

One of the founding members of the Bombay Progressive Artists’ Group, M F Husain is renowned for pioneering the modern art movement in India. Throughout his decades-long artistic career, Husain continually challenged the existing practices and traditions in Indian art and revolutionised the country’s art scene. From his rejection of British Academic Realism and home-grown Revivalist art movements in the initial stages of his career to his exploration of unconventional and often provocative themes and subjects until his final years, Husain’s practice expressed defiance towards convention and fearlessly yearned for liberation and freedom. As articulated by art historian Yashodhara Dalmia, “In moving from accurate depictions of reality to the unending possibilities opened up by the painterly image was akin to leaping across several centuries.” (Yashodhara Dalmia, The Making of Modern Indian Art: The Progressives, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2001, p. 101)

Born in 1915 in Pandharpur, Maharashtra, Husain began his career as a painter for hire, primarily painting on cinema billboards. In 1947, he joined his contemporaries F N Souza, K H Ara, and S H Raza to form the Bombay Progressive Artists’ Group and launched a radical art movement that discarded traditional artistic practices to comply with the changing cultural and social conditions of an independent India.

Husain travelled extensively during this formative period, 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 Paul Klee, Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse and Amedeo 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 and unique idiom. “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.” (Dalmia, p. 101)

The themes in Husain’s artworks are deeply informed by his personal annotations and beliefs, and his social consciousness. His works are rich in metaphors often communicated through figures in varied forms, including nude and abstract female forms, animal symbolism, and mythological and historical figures. “While his paintings do have an immediate social context, the essential concern of his art is archetypal: it explores the parables of life, love and death. The figures in his groups are for the most part given personal, not social, relationships. Each comes robed in its own solitary identity, the structure of the grouping accentuating the monumental character of the individual figure.” (Richard Bartholomew and Shiv S Kapur, Husain, New York: Harry N Abrams, Inc., 1972, p. 58)

This is observed in the present lot, which was painted in 2005, during the final decade of Husain’s prolific career and life. The large-scale oil on canvas was a part of a series of 21 paintings that he created over the course of two months at a rented apartment in London in 2005. Exhibited at his solo show in 2005 titled ‘The Lost Continent’, these works offer an insight into Husain’s observations, thoughts, and discontentment with the deterioration of human values in the contemporary world. These conceptually rich paintings, including the present lot, feature leitmotifs, practices, and stylistic elements from his earlier works – including the depiction of human figures engaging in tacit dialogue.

In Untitled (Lost Continent), Husain portrays three diagonal nude figures cutting across the centre of the canvas with an isolated human figure on one side and a close-up of a face on the other. According to art writer Kishore Singh, “M. F. Husain is at his best when he brings more than one figure into a frame to establish a relationship and build on its accompanying tension. Whatever the nature of that affiliation, he manifests it with an energy that is irresistible.” (Kishore Singh, “M F Husain,” Masterpieces of Indian Modern Art, New Delhi: DAG Modern, 2016, p. 220)

The painting has been rendered using strong lines, vibrant colours and mixed textures that are reminiscent of the diverse artistic practices adopted by Husain throughout his career. “Husain’s line casts into motion his energised pictorial spaces; his brilliant colours envelop the space with symbolic and expressive values; and his distinct human forms transform the narrative on the painting surface into an intimate experience of poetry.” (Hwee Koon, M F Husain: The Lost Continent, Singapore: Studio International, 2005, online)

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