Maqbool Fida Husain (1915-2011)

Good overall condition.
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In this classic and extraordinary canvas by Husain from the Abe and Jan Weisblat Collection, Untitled (Woman with Child) presents Husain’s most tender and enduring leitmotifs—the veiled woman with text in hand, a small child holding a raised lamp—and recalls the 1950s iconography of Husain’s most significant early work, Between the Spider and the Lamp (1956).

Also compare this work from 1960 with the earlier work Blue Night, circa 1959 (Herwitz, Husain, 1988, pl. 61). Note the repetition of the seated, faceless, veiled figure–both with one hand toward their lap, the other raised to the level of their breast; both with fingers extended, grasping a prayer book. While the earlier work displays a simplicity in form – a faceless woman in white; adorned with Husain’s recurring symbols of the lamp and spider; a delicate treatment of the palette knife across the canvas–the later work is adorned with rich ceruleans; small, layered strokes of the palette knife; and a small child–Husain himself?—with upturned face and grasping a small lamp.   

In many of his paintings, Husain demonstrates his inclination toward the portrayal of faceless and often veiled women. Burdened by the loss of his mother at the age of one and a half, and his subsequent inability to recall her face, Husain’s treatment of women throughout his career reveals a mixture of tenderness, nostalgia and reverence. 

In his autobiography Where Art Thou, Husain explains his longing for a faceless woman: “… whenever he [Husain] chances upon a Maharashtrian sari … he searches for her in the pleats of the sari. He imagines the face of the mother. He longs to touch her breath, he longs to feel her presence. He is restless, continues to look for her everywhere. But where, where, where?

‘It is this undying ember of love that has seen him through the troughs and peaks. The child is what the mother is. Absurdly, on occasion, he wonders whether she is hiding herself from him, so that she can still inspire him. She could be amidst the grand sculptures of the goddesses in the Ajanta caves. She could be as timeless as Mohenjodaro. Motherless Maqbool. Empty of the memory of her face …” (Husain, Where Art Thou, Delhi, 2002, p.18)