Important Notice

M.F. Husain first encountered the figure of the horse in the religious stories he was told as a child. It featured in the tales of the Battle of Karbala and Imam Husain the martyr that he heard from his elders at home, as well as those of Ashwamedh, the heroic riderless horse of Hindu epics, that he learnt about at his school in Indore. The artist's fascination with the animal was further developed during his travels in China and Italy in the... M.F. Husain first encountered the figure of the horse in the religious stories he was told as a child. It featured in the tales of the Battle of Karbala and Imam Husain the martyr that he heard from his elders at home, as well as those of Ashwamedh, the heroic riderless horse of Hindu epics, that he learnt about at his school in Indore. The artist's fascination with the animal was further developed during his travels in China and Italy in the 1950s, when he came across ancient artistic renderings of horses by painters of the Sung dynasty, and modern ones by artists like Marino Marini, Franz Marc and Pablo Picasso. As Yashodhara Dalmia notes, along with the artist, his horse "…swept across continents, amalgamating various influences into a composite form", yet always remained unique and "singularly his own" (The Making of Modern Indian Art: The Progressives, Oxford University Press, New Delhi, 2001, p. 107).

In the present lot, Husain pairs the figure of a prancing white horse with that of a faceless female dancer, another motif that he returned to throughout his career. The way in which the white stallion's body curves around the dancer's copper coloured form, almost as if it is embracing her, speaks of both the protective and passionate avatars of the equestrian.

"The relationship of the body to the stallion is a paradox of frenzy and unhurried movement. An elegant dissection of space with line and angle. There is a measure of a squared-off posture and high leaping which suggests the free dance of Martha Graham or hints at the ecstasy that is enclosed by the flashing lines of a Bernini sculptural composition or the mithuna representations of the Konark……Husain's horse becomes a vehicle for multiple utterances - aggression, power and protection" (Roshan Shahani, Let History Cut across Me without Me, Vadehra Art Gallery, New Delhi, 1993, not paginated).

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