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"Art has to evolve from your very being, like my horses I see them as ageless and immortal. They draw chariots in the great epics, they stand proudly in the poorest stables, they are embodiments of strength." - M F HUSAIN

The present lot is a vivid portrayal of a white horse and its female rider, two leitmotifs often seen in M F Husain's paintings, rendered using strong lines and thick brushwork. According to Yashodhara Dalmia,... "Art has to evolve from your very being, like my horses I see them as ageless and immortal. They draw chariots in the great epics, they stand proudly in the poorest stables, they are embodiments of strength." - M F HUSAIN

The present lot is a vivid portrayal of a white horse and its female rider, two leitmotifs often seen in M F Husain's paintings, rendered using strong lines and thick brushwork. According to Yashodhara Dalmia, "Above all else, it was the line that was Husain's strongest element and he used it with a bounding energy in his work. The deft strokes that came from an early acquaintance with calligraphy now encased the figure in simple, economic points of intersection." ("A Metaphor for Modernity," The Making of Modern Indian Art: The Progressives, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2001, p. 109) It was painted in Caracas, Venezuela when the artist was participating in the Indian Trade Exhibition and Cultural Festival in the city in 1983, and was intended as a gift.

Husain's depictions of women are deeply rooted in Indian sculpture and miniature painting, which he encountered during his travels across the country, while his horses continued to evolve and incorporate a mix of influences. His study of Chinese horses from the Sung dynasty, and the work of Franz Marc and Mario Marini influenced his economy of line and his depiction of complex emotions. Husain incorporates these influences seamlessly to create paintings in his own inimitable style. His horses are archetypes imbued with a sense of mythic power and virility, representative of change. They have been described as, "... subterranean creatures. Their nature is not intellectualised: it is rendered as sensation or as abstract movement, with a capacity to stir up vague premonitions and passions, in a mixture of ritualistic fear and exultant anguish." (Richard Bartholomew and Shiv S Kapur, Husain, New York: Harry N Abrams, Inc., 1972, p. 43)

Husain explored the many moods and nuances of these majestic animals throughout his career, painted with the same frenetic energy that they represent through their bucking and rearing postures. So enthralled was the artist by the power of the horse that he even referenced it in his own poetry. "The horses are rampant or galloping; the manes, the fury, the working buttocks, the prancing legs, and the strong neighing heads with dilated nostrils are blocks of colour which are vivid or tactile or are propelled in their significant progression by strokes of the brush or sweeps of the palette knife. The activity depicted is transformed in the activity of paint." (Ebrahim Alkazi, M F Husain: The Modern Artist and Tradition, New Delhi: Art Heritage, 1978, p. 3)

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