MF Hussain:The journey of a painter
He was ninety-six years in age and still painting with two major projects in Qatar and London. His was a life of contradictions, compromise and courage. Fakir, nomad, lover, poet, dreamer, artist, filmmaker, stuntman, adventurer – he lived them all. Each time we met, Husain was in a different incarnation. He was unpredictable. In 1969, he arrived at our house in Nizamuddin to sell us his painted car. Surprised, we replied we were not ready with the cash. Without hesitation, he replied, “Pay me next time.” He opened up the back of the old car, took out a bicycle and rode away. He possessed the ability to reinvent himself whenever the situation demanded. In an interview with CNN in Dubai, he had remarked, “To complete what I have to do, I would need four lives.” In fact, he lived through many more than four lives!
Husain once observed that his paintings were “metaphors” – and he always remained a painter of “Signs.” His obsession with Mother Teresa shows her invariably as the mother of compassion with the gesture of her hand, floating mysteriously into view against the pitch black of night, the blue border of her sari like a halo, the child on her lap. Hanuman is defined with his mace as he leaps across burning Lanka. Draupadi lies stretched across the chaupad, the game of dice where she was bartered. I was a guest lodged in the attic. One morning, with the first flush of dawn, I watched awestricken as he knelt down to pray and then went down to work before we all gathered for tea. Life was a race, and no one understood this better than him. Age had not diminished his energy. He would walk down Mayfair, a tall lean figure in a black sherwani walking ahead of us, to stride barefoot into the red carpets of the Dorchester Hotel.In exile, his new passion was cars: a red Ferrari in Dubai, a black Rolls Royce in London. As we drove in his sleek black Phantom, cruising around the Hyde Park, he would comment that though he lived abroad, his paintings would always be on “the Indian landscape.”
He was ninety-six years in age and still painting with two major projects in Qatar and London. His was a life of contradictions, compromise and courage. Fakir, nomad, lover, poet, dreamer, artist, filmmaker, stuntman, adventurer – he lived them all. Each time we met, Husain was in a different incarnation. He was unpredictable. In 1969, he arrived at our house in Nizamuddin to sell us his painted car. Surprised, we replied we were not ready with the cash. Without hesitation, he replied, “Pay me next time.” He opened up the back of the old car, took out a bicycle and rode away. He possessed the ability to reinvent himself whenever the situation demanded. In an interview with CNN in Dubai, he had remarked, “To complete what I have to do, I would need four lives.” In fact, he lived through many more than four lives!
Husain once observed that his paintings were “metaphors” – and he always remained a painter of “Signs.” His obsession with Mother Teresa shows her invariably as the mother of compassion with the gesture of her hand, floating mysteriously into view against the pitch black of night, the blue border of her sari like a halo, the child on her lap. Hanuman is defined with his mace as he leaps across burning Lanka. Draupadi lies stretched across the chaupad, the game of dice where she was bartered. I was a guest lodged in the attic. One morning, with the first flush of dawn, I watched awestricken as he knelt down to pray and then went down to work before we all gathered for tea. Life was a race, and no one understood this better than him. Age had not diminished his energy. He would walk down Mayfair, a tall lean figure in a black sherwani walking ahead of us, to stride barefoot into the red carpets of the Dorchester Hotel.In exile, his new passion was cars: a red Ferrari in Dubai, a black Rolls Royce in London. As we drove in his sleek black Phantom, cruising around the Hyde Park, he would comment that though he lived abroad, his paintings would always be on “the Indian landscape.”
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