Mother Teresa’s iconic blue-edged sari is a testament to Husain’s preoccupation with depicting key events and influences that have shaped his personal perspective as well as that of his ouevre. Husain depicted Mother Teresa as a “faceless woman clad in a white sari with a blue border bending over brown children, holding them in her lap or close to her breast. Sometimes, the folds of her sari would cover the brown bodies...
Mother Teresa’s iconic blue-edged sari is a testament to Husain’s preoccupation with depicting key events and influences that have shaped his personal perspective as well as that of his ouevre. Husain depicted Mother Teresa as a “faceless woman clad in a white sari with a blue border bending over brown children, holding them in her lap or close to her breast. Sometimes, the folds of her sari would cover the brown bodies entirely, enveloping them in compassion. Perhaps the manifold yards of cloth could hold the lost and yearning child in Husain forever.” (Yashodhara Dalmia, The making of modern Indian art, the progressives, Oxford University Press, 2001, p. 116)
“I have tried to capture in my paintings what her presence meant to the destitute and the dying, the light and hope she brought by mere inquiry, by putting her hand over a child abandoned in a street. I did not cry at this encounter. I returned with so much strength and sadness that it continues to ferment within..” (ibid, M.F.Husain on Mother Teresa, p. 116)