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Khalid Mohamed, 88 Husain in Oils 003, Kolkata, New Delhi and Mumbai: Galerie 88, Vadehra Art Gallery and Pundole Art Gallery, 2003

196 pages with a total of 88 plates, including 22 plates each of the "Bombay Suite", "Kolkata Suite", "New Delhi Suite" and "Paris Suite"; hardbound with dust jacket
15.5 x 12 x 1 in (39.5 x 30.5 x 2.5 cm)

The book includes a silver-inked, signed sketch of Husain's iconic horses by the artist, measuring 38.5 x 29.5 cm, on the beginning endpaper.

THE ARTIST’S HAND IN THE BOOK: M. F. HUSAIN’S 88 HUSAIN IN OILS 003, WITH ORIGINAL INK DRAWING OF A HORSE

88 Husain in Oils 003, edited by journalist and curator Khalid Mohamed, is one of the final major monographs published during M F Husain’s lifetime. Lavishly produced and collaboratively issued by three of India’s leading galleries—Galerie 88 (Kolkata), Vadehra Art Gallery (New Delhi), and Pundole Art Gallery (Mumbai)—the volume commemorates Husain’s return to oil painting at the age of 88. It is a deeply personal, retrospective celebration of his lifelong artistic idiom, distilled across four thematic suites: Bombay, Calcutta, Delhi, and Paris.

Comprising 88 full-colour plates, the book charts Husain’s meditative return to the medium of oil on canvas—a conscious, symbolic gesture marking his age and artistic renewal. Each suite presents 22 paintings inspired by his emotional and intellectual impressions of the cities he knew intimately. Through these canvases, Husain rediscovers his iconography: horses, dancers, courtesans, tigers, mythic goddesses, and the mother figure—all revisited with greater formal clarity and compositional restraint.

What distinguishes the present copy is the original pen-and-ink (or silver-ink) sketch executed directly on the front free endpaper and boldly signed by Husain himself. This drawing—a single-line rendering of a rearing horse, one of Husain’s most iconic and repeatedly explored motifs—embodies his lifelong fascination with energy, motion, and the poetic synthesis of animal grace and human spirit. Executed with deft spontaneity, the sketch captures the essence of Husain’s line—fluid, expressive, and mythically charged.

While unsigned copies of 88 Husain in Oils 003 exist in institutional and private libraries, very few are known to bear Husain’s original artwork. His horse drawings, executed in ink, silver or gold marker, or pastel, were often made quickly and gifted to friends, collectors, or gallery associates. In the present example, the combination of sketch, signature, and inscription offers an unusually rich triangulation of the personal, artistic, and documentary. It provides direct evidence of Husain’s enduring generosity, spontaneous creativity, and his performative engagement with the page as surface and space.

For collectors and scholars alike, such a copy is not merely a book but a hybrid artefact—a unique intersection of object, gesture, and memory.