Maqbool Fida Husain is considered one of the greatest modern painters of India. Born in Pandharpur- Maharashtra he was a self taught artist who came to Mumbai in 1937 determined to become an artist. He began his career by painting billboards for films & advertisements, making furniture designs and toys to earn a living.
Husain's chosen media ranged from oil painting, acrylic and watercolour, through lithography & serigraphy, to sculpture, architecture and installation. Husain was a founding member of the Progressive Artists Group, the self-declared “moderns” of Indian art who rose to International fame in the 1940s. His narrative paintings, executed in a modified Cubist style, can be caustic & funny as well as serious and somber. His themes-sometimes treated in series-include topics as diverse as Gandhi, Mother Teresa, Ramayana, Mahabharata, British Raj and motifs of Indian urban and rural life. Aspects of European Modernism merged with Husain's Indian sensibility, forming a distinctive visual idiom. His artistic vocabulary combined the palette of the Indian miniature tradition with the fluid postures of Indian classical iconography.
Husain was honored by the Padma Shri in 1966, Padma Bhushan in 1973, Padma Vibhushan in 1991, Raja Ravi Varma Award in 2007 to name a few. His works are in the collection of the biggest Indian and International art collections and museums. He passed away in 2011 in London at the age of 98.
