Important Notice

Every decade in M.F. Husain's career as an artist was marked by identifiable shifts in his exploration of art.

Husain's paintings from the 1950s, as in the present lot, take their subjects from ordinary life around him. "...they are activity-oriented, and their dominant characteristic is a strong and rhythmic line. ...The human figure has remained the prime motif of his art, the vehicle for his exploration of the nature and drama of... Every decade in M.F. Husain's career as an artist was marked by identifiable shifts in his exploration of art.

Husain's paintings from the 1950s, as in the present lot, take their subjects from ordinary life around him. "...they are activity-oriented, and their dominant characteristic is a strong and rhythmic line. ...The human figure has remained the prime motif of his art, the vehicle for his exploration of the nature and drama of reality." (Richard Bartholomew and Shiv S. Kapur, Husain, Harry N. Abrams Inc., New York, 1972, p. 36)

Husain's use of the folk idiom was complex and inventive. "Unlike his contemporaries Souza, Ram Kumar, and Satish Gujral, who focused on the urban situation, Husain looked towards Ram Kumar, and Satish Gujral, who focused on the urban situation, Husain looked towards the village, but only in a specific sense, where it formed part of the great gush of change that was sweeping across the country." (Yashodhara Dalmia, The Making of Modern Indian Art: The Progressives, Oxford University Press, New Delhi, 2001, p. 107)

According to Geeta Kapur, the years between 1948 and '52 hold a significant place in Husain's development as an artist, pointing "to a very significant way of assimilating Indianness: not through sentimentality but by transmuting its reality into a personal expression."(Geeta Kapur, Introduction and Analytical Note, Husain, Sadanga Series by Vakils, p.4).

Husain's style evolved greatly during this period, in the way he deployed line, form and colour, and made use of symbols and abstract signs. Between 1948 and 1955, Husain traveled extensively. He went to Delhi with Souza and was greatly influenced by the Mathura sculptures he saw at the Presidential Palace. Fellow artist Krishen Khanna recalls the impact that this exhibition of Indian art forms had on Husain, at a time when Indian artists were just surfacing from 200 years of British subjugation of their cultural heritage. The plasticity of the sculptural form and medium is evident throughout Husain's work following this visit. Husain also saw Basohli and Jain miniature paintings during this time, and the latter was particularly appealing "with its strong, even coarse, lines, and expressions of energy and movement in the stance of the figures." (Bartholomew and Kapur, p. 36)

In the present lot, one sees all these elements come together: the taut, high-breasted female form, evocative of Mathura sculptures, the use of thick lines from Jain paintings, and the poetic imagery and emotive colour of the Basohli miniature. The earthy reds and browns, used often in his paintings from this period use jagged strokes and they "counterpoise traditional aesthetic means like flatness and aerial views with an expressionist vocabulary." (Dalmia, p. 103). This 1950 painting contains the early renderings of some characteristic Husain motifs: the black sun, the mule/horse, given the plasticity of a toy, and sturdy peasant women going about their work "with a certain air of dignity." (Dalmia, p. 101)


Begum Qudsia Zaidi (1914 - 1960)

The following lot, belongs to what many consider the "golden period" of Husain's career and was sold by Husain directly to Begum Qudsia Zaidi in the same decade as he painted it. A children's book author and social activist, Zaidi is most remembered for her pioneering role in establishing the Hindustani Theatre in Delhi in 1957.

Zaidi was born on December 23, 1914 to Khan Bahadur Abdullah Saheb, a senior police officer, and his wife, in Delhi. She lost her parents at an early age and moved to Lahore to live with her sister and her husband Ahmed Shah Bokhari, aka "Patras." A professor in the Government College, and an acclaimed Urdu writer and theatre enthusiast, Patras was crucial in shaping Zaidi's interest in the arts.

After spending her formative years studying at Kinnaird College in Lahore, Zaidi moved to Delhi, where she met her future husband, Colonel Bashir Hussain Zaidi who served the princely state of Rampur at the time. They married in 1937 and Qudsia had the freedom to pursue her interests and ambitions, a rarity for many Indian women at the time.

In 1948, the Zaidis moved to Delhi after the Colonel was chosen as a member of the Constituent Assembly. The decade that followed was significant one, both for Begum Zaidi and the cultural community at large. Through her close acquaintance with Kamladevi Chattopadhyay, a famous social reformer and cultural authority, Begum Zaidi developed a keen interest in theatre. She had now began to build an artistic and intellectual circle around her; her charm and wit regularly attracting poets, writers, and painters to the Zaidi home in Jamia Nagar, Delhi.

In a personal letter to the photographer Ram Rehman, Begum Zaidi's son, Syed, recounts: "My mother befriended a number of painters around that time, including Husain, Raza, Ram Kumar and Satish Gujral, and helped them place their work. There was, for example, a whole load of Gujral's stuff that she bought for Aligarh Muslim University when my father wasVice-Chancellor just around that time. I vaguely remember Husain Sahib from around that time."

In 1954, Begum Zaidi met Habib Tanvir and together they founded the Hindustani Theatre a few years later. Although its tenure was short-lived, it was become one of the first urban professional theatre companies of independent India. The Begum herself wrote wrote and translated a number of plays in Urdu, and was one of the first people to translate and stage German playwright Bertolt Brecht's works in India.

The Begum passed away on December 27, 1960, at the age of 46 and her death left a void in Delhi's cultural and artistic community.

Over the years after the Begum's death, Husain's friendship with the Zaidis waned. He did, however, keep track of this painting and sought to buy it back from the family a couple of times. The painting is an important work from his early years in post-independence India, and Husain himself was clearly quite aware of it.

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