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Born in 1915, M.F. Husain, a largely self-taught artist, was a founding member of the Bombay based Progressive Artists' Group. Since his first exhibition in 1947, Husain's oeuvre continually evolved and engaged with various themes and media and is often used as an indicator of the growth and development of modern Indian art.

The present lot, a 1979 portrait of a lady holding a gas lamp, is reminiscent of an earlier series of... Born in 1915, M.F. Husain, a largely self-taught artist, was a founding member of the Bombay based Progressive Artists' Group. Since his first exhibition in 1947, Husain's oeuvre continually evolved and engaged with various themes and media and is often used as an indicator of the growth and development of modern Indian art.

The present lot, a 1979 portrait of a lady holding a gas lamp, is reminiscent of an earlier series of paintings by the artist that featured single faceless women against muted backgrounds. The artist's "…women are monumental in their fortitude and yet humble and ordinary in a duality that Husain expresses effortlessly…far from arousing passion, [they] are ascetic without any of the abundant sexuality found in [the] Indian sculptures" that inspired much of his figuration (Yashodhara Dalmia, The Making of Modern Indian Art: The Progressives, Oxford University Press, New Delhi, 2001, p. 101, 110).

Linking this anonymity with the artist's upbringing and early experience of loss, Dalmia notes, "Husain's women are always enshrouded in an invisible veil, the simplicity of their form countered by their inaccessibility. They could well be women from his own childhood in a Muslim household, where the feminine presence alternates between the secretive and the visible. The suppressed yearning could be for his mother, who died when he was only two years old, leaving him feeling permanently bereft" (Ibid., p. 111).

In depicting a nameless and largely featureless woman, gazing upward in expectation, Husain accentuates the atmosphere of loss and longing in this canvas. In addition, like several other of his early studies of women, her figure "…is countered by the gas lamp that stands sentinel to her thoughts. The phallus-shaped lamp has a special significance for Husain as he was brought up by his grandfather Abdul, a lamp-repairer and a tinsmith and his emotional mainstay till his death when Husain was six years old" (Ibid.).

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