Maqbool Fida Husain (17 September 1915 – 9 June 2011) popularly known as MF, was a prominent Indian painter. According to Forbes magazine, he has been called the "Picasso of India".
Husain was associated with Indian modernism in the 1940s. After a long career, in 1996, when Husain was 81 years old, controversy arose over paintings originally created in the 1970s which were interpreted as anti-Hindu. After legal cases and death threats in his home country, he was on a self imposed exile from 2006. In January, 2010, he was offered the citizenship of Qatar, which he accepted. He died in London the following year.
Career
1940-1965
Husain first became well-known as an artist in the late 1940s. In 1947, he joined the Progressive Artists' Group, founded by Francis Newton Souza. This was a clique of young artists who wished to break with the nationalist traditions established by the Bengal school of art and to encourage an Indian avant-garde, engaged at an international level. In 1952, his first solo exhibition was held at Zürich and over the next few years, his work was widely seen in Europe and the U.S. In 1955, he was awarded the prestigious Padma Shri award by the Government of India.
1965-1990
In 1967, he made his first film, Through the Eyes of a Painter. It was shown at the Berlin Film Festival and won a Golden Bear.
M. F. Husain was a special invitee along with Pablo Picasso at the Sao Paulo Biennial in 1971. He has been awarded the Padma Bhushan in 1973 and was nominated to the Rajya Sabha in 1986. He was awarded the Padma Vibhushan in 1991.
1990-2011
Husain went on to become the highest paid painter in India. His single canvases have fetched up to $2 million at a recent Christie's auction.
He has also worked (produced & directed) on few movies, including Gaja Gamini (with his muse Madhuri Dixit who was the subject of a series of his paintings which he signed Fida). The film was intended as a tribute to Ms. Dixit herself. In this film she can be seen portraying various forms and manifestations of womanhood including the muse of Kalidasa, the Mona Lisa, a rebel, and musical euphoria. He went on to make Meenaxi: A Tale of Three Cities (with Tabu). His autobiography is being made into a movie tentatively titled The Making of the Painter, starring Shreyas Talpade as the young Husain.
The Peabody Essex Museum (PEM) (USA, Massachusetts) showed a solo exhibition from 4 November 2006 to 3 June 2007. It exhibited Husain’s paintings inspired by the Hindu epic, Mahabharata.
At the age of 92 Husain was to be given the prestigious Raja Ravi Varma award by the government of Kerala. The announcement led to controversy in Kerala and some cultural organisations campaigned against the granting of the award and petitioned the Kerala courts. Sabarimala spokesperson, Rahul Easwar, went to Kerala High Court and it granted an interim order to stay the granting of the award until the petition had been disposed of.
In early 2008, Husain's Battle of Ganga and Jamuna: Mahabharata 12, a large diptych, from the Hindu epic, fetched $1.6 million, setting a world record at Christie's South Asian Modern and Contemporary Art sale.
His name was included in the list of the 500 Most Influential Muslims in the World, issued by the Royal Islamic Strategic Studies Center in Amman, Jordan.
For the last years of his life he lived in Dubai and London, staying away from India, but expressing a strong desire to return, despite fears of arrest. He died in a Royal Brompton hospital in London at 2.30 am on Thursday, June 9, 2011 following a cardiac arrest.
If MF Hussain is a liberal then the cartoonist of Muhammad is the greatest liberal. How can painting n*de pictures of hindu g0ddesses be part of anyone's freedom ? Will MF Hussain paint n*de pic of his Pr0phet ? Isn't it a deliberate provocation ? Still no one tried to kill him and the over clever mullah chose to run away. These are the pseudo intellectuals are deliberately stepping on their nerves to provoke anger as the only thing these Indian joker intellectuals understand from west is that they have to make some people angry.. very angry ..than they will become intellectual.. By going through this one can understand why tweeples are angry over Sagarika Ghose & her pseudo secular views..
India is the only country where people who mock its culture and religion are called 'intellectuals' and 'liberals' and given special status
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