Maqbool Fida Husain (1915 - 2011)

Dhoomimal Gallery, New Delhi
Saluja Collection, New Delhi

R. Bartholomew and S. Kapur, Husain, Harry N. Abrams Inc. Publishers, New York, 1970, pl. 138

This canvas has been stretched, cleaned and lightly inpainted. There is fine craquelure present in areas of thicker paint and impasto with minor associated losses. There are fine stretcher abrasions to the edges of the canvas, and horizontal creases present under the woman's neck and torso. Pinhole sized spots of white paint are present int he lower section of the work which can be easily removed. Frame: Slight wear to the frame
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In Untitled, the woman is illuminated in varying shades of ochre while the rest of the painting is executed in a sombre palette making her the focal point of this work. Her nude body is painted with a sensitivity and reverence archetypal of Husain’s treatment of the female form. She shields her chest with her arms, perhaps in an effort to guard her modesty and her gently tilting face bears a serene countenance. The bestial male figure appears behind her as a shadow, his face reminiscent of African masks. The apprehensive stillness in the painting is startlingly pierced with the presence of a green bird in flight, with a gaping beak and sprawling wings. The intermingling of predation and seduction, violence and desire, power and vulnerability, reality and mystery forges a heavy dialogue that aptly expresses the climactic emotions that Husain wished to portray here. He has re-visited this theme in other noted works such as Mithuna where he has been heavily influenced by sculptures from the Khajuraho temple complex.

S. Kapur states, ‘The prime symbol of Husain’s total view of life is the woman, again perhaps the Indian woman. For pain comes to woman as her natural state, the giving of birth and, because of birth, an awareness of dissolution. Woman is the sentient point of man’s natural being. She has curiosity, she suffers, she gives birth willingly. There is pity in her eyes, as there is love in her breast. Man is, according to Husain, virile only in heroism, is broken by pain. Husain paints women because these are not heroic times and, tenderly joyous or suffering, women remain vital. With a comprehensive view of life investing them, Husain has progressively laid bare his figures. They are given no landscape of time and place, no background except carefully worked tonal tensions. These figures have no drapery. They come clothed only in colour. […] They come from a territory of the mind, at once idea and living reality.’ (S. Kapur, Husain, Lalit Kala Akademi, New Delhi, 1961, pp. v-vi) Husain was extremely well-read and knowledgeable in humanistic thoughts and his repertoire is derived from Indian mythology, references to Greco-Roman and Biblical imagery.