Maqbool Fida Husain (b. 1915)

Mother Teresa is a subject Husain has returned to many times, depicting her as a, ‘faceless woman clad in a white sari with a blue border’ (Yashodhara Dalmia, The Making of Modern Indian Art: The Progressives, 2001, p. 116). ‘Husain collected the inky darkness of obscurity into the folds of white clothes and created a metaphor by infusing his feelings of deep reverence into the image created.’ (R. Siddiqui, In Conversation with Husain Paintings, 2001, p. 204). 

The artist interviewed in 1994 said, ‘I have tried to capture in my paintings what her presence meant to the destitute and the dying, the light and hope she brought by mere inquiry, by putting her hand over a child abandoned in the street.  I did not cry at this encounter.  I returned with so much strength and sadness that it continues to ferment within.  That is why I try again and again, after a gap of time, in different medium.’ (IIa Pal rpt. Yashodhara Dalmia, The Making of Modern Indian Art: The Progressives, 1994, p. 116).