Millions of art lovers around the world were on Thursday mourning for M.F. Husain, indisputably one of India’s greatest, most flamboyant and internationally recognised artists , who died in a London hospital following a heart attack. He was 95 and is survived by six children including four sons and two daughters.
Husain reportedly suffered a “silent” heart attack in Dubai recently but had recovered and was said to have been in good spirits. It was not clear when exactly he came to London but sources said he normally spent the summer in London. As he felt unwell, he was admitted to the Royal Brompton Hospital where he died at 1.30 a.m. on Thursday plunging the art world into gloom.
The burial will take place at a private funeral here on Friday. The decision not to take the body to India was taken in deference to his wishes that he would like to be laid to rest wherever he died.
Husain had been living in Dubai and London after he was forced to leave India in 2006 in the face of a vicious campaign of harassment and intimidation, including death threats, by right-wing Hindutva groups over his artistic depiction of Hindu deities. His exhibitions were vandalised and a number of legal cases, accusing him of hurting religious sentiments, were slapped on him. When he did not respond to summons from a district court in Haridwar, his properties were attacked and an arrest warrant was issued against him.
Qatar nationality
Last year, in a rare gesture, the State of Qatar gave him nationality. Faced with the prospect of arrest and further harassment if he returned to India, Husain accepted Qatar nationality, describing it as an honour. But he insisted that India would always remain his “home” regardless of where he lived physically.
There has been widespread criticism that successive Indian governments, including the Congress(I)-led UPA administration, failed to protect his right to artistic freedom.
“It is an indictment of those in power in India that the country's greatest artist died in exile. It is like Picasso dying in exile. For all their claim to secularism it is a shame that they couldn’t defend him against a mob of right-wing fanatics,” eminent economist Lord Meghnad Desai, an admirer and personal friend of Husain, told The Hindu.
The famously bohemian artist whose refusal to wear shoes became his signature trademark was credited with putting Indian art on the world map. His own work routinely fetched millions of dollars in the international market. Only recently, one of his paintings fetched Rs. 2.32 crore at an auction at Bonham’s in London.
Born on September 17, 1915 in Pandharpur, Maharashtra, Husain lost his mother when he was only one and a half years old. His father remarried and moved to Indore where he went to school. In 1935, he moved to what was then Bombay and joined Sir J.J. School of Art. As a young struggling artist he painted cinema hoardings and first came to limelight in the 1940s. He quickly made his mark as one of the pioneering spirits behind India’s fledgling avante garde movement and joined the Progressive Artists' Group, led by F.N. Souza.
Husain made his international debut in 1952 with a solo exhibition at Zurich and soon established a worldwide reputation becoming one of India’s highest paid painters. Owning his work became a mark of social status. The first state recognition came his way in 1955 when he was awarded the Padma Shri. In 1973, he was awarded the Padma Bhushan and in 1991, the Padma Vibhushan. He was nominated to the Rajya Sabha in 1986.
Reputed for his free creative spirit and his sense of adventure, Husain experimented with cinema, making his first film “Through the Eyes of a Painter” in 1967 which won a Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival. He also made two Hindi films, “Gaja Gamini” with Madhuri Dixit who he described as his muse; and “Meenaxi: A Tale of Three Cities”. He also did a series of paintings inspired by Madhuri Dixit signing off as “Fida”, an Urdu word for “devoted”.
Husain, easily recognisable in his flowing beard and white hair, was a familiar figure in London’s art circles and remained active until his last days.
Tributes poured in as news of his death spread. Industrialist and Labour peer Lord Swraj Paul described him as a “great Indian and a great human being”.
“He made India proud and in his death the country has lost a great soul,” he said.
The Indian High Commission described Husain’s death as “an immense loss to millions of his admirers across India, the U.K. and the world”.
“We mourn his passing away. In his death, the world of art has lost a person of prodigious talent who had opened up new horizons for other painters,” it said, in a statement.
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