Important Notice

The latter half of the 1950s was a period of great accomplishment in Husain's career. He had exhibited at the Venice Biennale in 1954, and subsequently in Zurich, Prague, Frankfurt and Rome. In 1959, he was presented with the International Biennale award in Tokyo. His personal life, too, was transformed by Marie Zurkova, a linguist with whom he shared a symbiotic relationship based largely on a shared interest in art, religion and philosophy.... The latter half of the 1950s was a period of great accomplishment in Husain's career. He had exhibited at the Venice Biennale in 1954, and subsequently in Zurich, Prague, Frankfurt and Rome. In 1959, he was presented with the International Biennale award in Tokyo. His personal life, too, was transformed by Marie Zurkova, a linguist with whom he shared a symbiotic relationship based largely on a shared interest in art, religion and philosophy. His paintings reflected these important developments in his personal life.

The present lot depicts one of Husain's primary subjects: women. He paints them in a group-a composition he explored often in his paintings of musicians, dancers, and bathers by the Benaras banks, during this period. This grouping is described by critic Shiv S Kapur, as the subjects being "within a community of loneliness." (Richard Bartholomew and Shiv S Kapur, Husain, New York: Harry N Abrams, Inc., 1971, p. 41) The melancholic grey background, with the occasional splash of yellow, enhances this sense of isolation. "He uses color emotively, in flat planes and subtle tones, amid restless active or strongly arresting lines. The world that he creates, while capable of gay outbursts, tends to be a brooding, inward-turning world..." (Bartholomew and Kapur, p. 42) Though stylised in form, Husain's women were always shrouded in mystery. According to Kapur, for Husain, "Woman is seen either as a creation of lyric poetry, a sculpturesque and rhythmic figure of dance, or as an agent of fecundity." (Bartholomew and Kapur, p. 46)

Read More
Artist Profile
Other works of this artist in: this auction  |  entire site