Important Notice

The female form, which shows up from the earliest of M F Husain’s works, was one of his chief artistic preoccupations. His life was shaped by the absence of a stable guiding female presence after the death of his mother when he was only three months old. Critic Shiv S Kapur notes this importance, “The central concern of Husain’s art, and its dominant motif, is woman... Spiritually, woman is more enduring. Pain comes naturally to her, as do... The female form, which shows up from the earliest of M F Husain’s works, was one of his chief artistic preoccupations. His life was shaped by the absence of a stable guiding female presence after the death of his mother when he was only three months old. Critic Shiv S Kapur notes this importance, “The central concern of Husain’s art, and its dominant motif, is woman... Spiritually, woman is more enduring. Pain comes naturally to her, as do compassion and a sense of birth and death of things. In Husain’s work, woman has the gift of eagerness... and an inward attentiveness, as if she were listening to the life coursing within her.” (Richard Bartholomew and Shiv S Kapur, Husain, Hyderabad: Cinema Ghar, 2006, p. 46) Reflecting on the iconicity Husain imbues his women with, art critic Geeta Kapur notes, “It is the image of woman which predominates his work and for the most part she has been regarded from a deferential distance. There is a degree of idolization in his approach to the female form and like all idols it exudes an aura. Husain seems to give the woman a moral prerogative over man. He struggles with destiny; she has the greater capacity for survival and the twin faculties of fertility and forbearance which sustain life.” (Geeta Kapur, “Maqbool Fida Husain: Folklore and Fiesta”, Contemporary Indian Artists, New Delhi: Vikas Publishing House Pvt Ltd, 1978, p. 134)

In the present lot, Husain renders a modest woman-clad in a traditional salwar kameez with a dupatta covering her head-in strong lines that draw from classical Indian sculpture. The artist diminishes the sensuality of the source works by drawing the figure with less voluptuous contours, giving it a “taut, tense quality.” (Geeta Kapur quoted in Ila Pal, Beyond the Canvas: An Unfinished Portrait of M.F. Husain, New Delhi: Indus, 1994, p. 84) Husain developed his own figuration taking generous inspiration from traditional Indian art but without falling into pure mimesis. He travelled around India in the 1950s, sketching sculptures from life as part of this process. In Khajuraho, he made hundreds of sketches taking inspiration from the sculptures there. He recalled, “They were not copies. While transfiguring them on to paper, I simplified the form to get the minimum structure. The aim was to understand and evolve, not imitate. I would start off with the real, go away, and return for some reference... to deviate once again.” (The artist quoted in Pal, p. 84) Art historian Yashodhara Dalmia notes the austerity that Husain introduced to these forms imbued them with a remote beauty. “It is almost as if he strips the sculptures of all exterior embellishments to arrive at their basic sense of movement. Husain’s women are always enshrouded in an invisible veil, the simplicity of their form countered by their inaccessibility.” (Yashodhara Dalmia, “A Metaphor for Modernity”, The Making of Modern Indian Art: The Progressives, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2001, pp.110-111)

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