MUMBAI – Maqbool Fida Husain, India’s best-known painter, has died in London aged 95, five years after he left his homeland after being persecuted by Hindu zealots angry at his work.
“He died of old age. It happened early this morning,” said his friend Munna Zaveri. “He was in hospital for some time and was supposed to come home today or tomorrow but his condition worsened.”
Dubbed the “Picasso of India”, Husain worked in a style that was a blend of cubism and classical Indian styles that helped give modern Indian art a world reputation. His canvasses sold for millions of dollars.
His depictions of naked Hindu goddesses, however, enraged zealots who attacked his house, vandalised shows displaying his work and eventually drove him to leave India.
For years, galleries were too frightened of protests to display his work.
In 2006, he moved to Dubai, and later London, and in 2010 he accepted Qatari citizenship, a step that led to much soul-searching in India over whether the world’s largest democracy could guarantee artistic freedom.
Husain said he was too old to fight “tooth and nail” and he craved the comforts and facilities he needed for his work. Borders did not matter to artists and his work would still be influenced by India’s culture, he said in a 2010 television interview.
His death was mourned by artists and also brought expressions of condolence from politicians, several of whom had been criticised for not being able to guarantee him the freedom he needed.
A spokesman for the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party called it “a great loss”, a sentiment echoed by President Pratibha Patil and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.
“He was so prolific that it didn’t matter whether some of his art appealed to the masses and some of it was appreciated at the highest level,” leading Indian artist Anjolie Ela Menon said.
Famous for walking barefoot and carrying a large paintbrush like a riding crop, Husain started as a struggling commercial painter creating cinema hoardings in the late 1930s. – (Reuters)