Maqbool Fida Husain

Acquired in India, circa early 1970s

Doris Pfeffer (1928 – 2024) was a clinical social worker who conducted a private practice as a psychotherapist and worked as a staff member of the Jewish Board of Family and Children’s Services. She was also a passionate educator, teaching at both New York University and Smith College’s School of Social Work. In 2013, she wrote an autobiography titled Dancing Among Shadows: Memories and Meditation on the Holocaust from an American Childhood and Beyond, describing early memories of Nazi Germany and their effect on her adult life and her research including interviews and discussions with German women. She traveled extensively and was a lover of the arts. Pfeffer met Husain in India and acquired this work.

Husain, Dhoomi Mal Gallery, New Delhi, illustrated

R. de L. Furtado, Three Painters, Dhoomimal Ramchand, New Delhi, 1960, illustration pl. 48

By the 1960s, Maqbool Fida Husain had gained international recognition through a variety of mediums and worldwide shows. A founding member of Bombay’s Progressive Artists Group, Husain showed his work at the Venice Biennale in 1953 and 1955, and then won the International Biennale Award at the Tokyo Biennale in 1959. He also made his first film in 1967, Through the Eyes of a Painter, which won a Golden Bear Award at Berlin’s annual film festival that year. The 1960s were a fruitful and notable period for Husain where he found success and appreciation for his work. It was also during this time that he reached a maturity in style and his depiction of the human figure, illustrated in Untitled (Women).

Untitled (Women) utilizes a similar compositional tool, as two groups of figures stand beside a main woman shrouded in a pink garment, making three distinct lines. The women to the right appear unclothed and they carry perhaps brushwood. While nudity is common in Husain’s work, it is not the focus nor the aim of his work. The anonymous, nude female form is often a metaphorical depiction of women, vulnerable yet strong, appealing yet unreachable. The central figure faces toward the left where there is another set of two women standing together perhaps attending to the dog or cat at their feet. A sun rises above them, reflecting a background of deep orange tones against the women’s green and brown garments. Untitled (Women) is a quintessential example of the sisterhood that Husain continually depicted with care and wonder. The work is also published in a 1960 book titled Three Painters alongside works by Amrita Sher-Gil and George Keyt, highlighting its importance in the history of Indian modern art.

'The central concern of Husain's art, and its dominant motif, is woman... Man, in Husain's view, is dynamic only in heroism. He is diminished by confusion and broken by unbelief, and these are unheroic and unbelieving times. Spiritually, woman is more enduring... In Husain's work, woman has the gift of eagerness[...] and an inward attentiveness, as if she were listening to the life coursing within her.' (R. Bartholomew and S. Kapur, Husain, Harry N. Abrams, Inc. Publishers, New York, 1971, p. 46)