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Lot 30

 

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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.” - M F HUSAIN

The human figure has always played an essential role in M F Husain’s depictions of the diverse realities of India. “How can I go abstract when there are 600 million people around... “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.” - M F HUSAIN

The human figure has always played an essential role in M F Husain’s depictions of the diverse realities of India. “How can I go abstract when there are 600 million people around me in India? It is impossible for me to ignore the multitudes around me. How can I do that as an artist?” (Artist quoted in Yashodhara Dalmia, “The Rise of Modern Art and the Progressives,” The Progressive Revolution: Modern Art for A New India, New York: Asia Society, 2019) The human figure accordingly became “the vehicle for his exploration of the nature and drama of reality.” (Richard Bartholomew and Shiv S Kapur, Husain, New York: Harry N Abrams, Inc., 1972, p. 36)

Each form in the present lot is bound by the artist’s quick and confident line, which speaks of “...great sensitiveness and energy. It is a versatile line, capable of both power and poetry. It divides his forms in firm definition, broods amongst his grouped figures...It lurks in women’s faces in tender almost tentative hint, or threads sharply across his compositions like a scalpel, separating one figure, one face from the other in subtly differentiated tones of colour, as though he sculpted his figures from paint.” (Shiv Kapur, Husain, New Delhi: Lalit Kala Akademi, 1961, p. i)

The present lot was painted by Husain for a seminar on national integration in New Delhi in 2003. Hosted by then President A P J Abdul Kalam, the painting formed the backdrop during his speech. Husain was commissioned to paint three panels using the colours of the national flag for this seminar – saffron for courage, sacrifice and the spirit of renunciation, white for purity, truth and peace, and green for fertility and faith.

Highly adept in the practise of colours and figures as allegory, Husain used the fiery orange panel to depict a harmonious nation and world, the energetic white panel filled with doves in motion and a dancing lady to highlight the dynamic nature of peace, and finally, the green panel (the present lot) to display figures set within a tropical surrounding in order to symbolise the promise of rebirth and a new tomorrow. Ultimately, the work is a reassertion of Husain’s optimism in the present and the future.

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