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Lot Essay
“We went to Delhi together to see that big exhibition of Indian sculptures and miniatures which was shown in 1948 [...] It was humbling. I came back to Bombay in 1948 with five paintings, which was the turning point in my life. I deliberately picked up two or three periods of Indian history. One was the classical period of the Guptas. The very sensuous form of the female body. Next, was the Basholi period. The strong colours of the Basholi miniatures. The last was the folk element. With these three combined, and using colours very boldly as I did with cinema hoardings [...] I went to town [...] That was the breaking point” (Artist statement, P. Nandy, The Illustrated Weekly of India, December 4–10, 1983).
Maqbool Fida Husain would return to the three guiding principles he noted above, rooted in classical Indian traditions, many times over the course of his long and illustrious career. The present lot, depicting a seated woman, is a great exemplar of this. The pose of the female figure is one that first appeared in Husain’s work as early as the 1950s. The high breasts, slightly twisted torso, accentuated hip and rhythmic curves recall Indian temple sculpture such as the Mithuna figures at Khajuraho, where the body is conceived as architectural rhythm rather than erotic display. Here, Husain treats the figure, even in palette, almost as if carved from stone, giving weight and compression to his protagonist. The figure is not eroticized but austere, illustrating what the art historian Yashodhara Dalmia noted about the artist’s portraits of women. “Husain's women, far from arousing passion, are ascetic without any of the abundant sexuality found in Indian sculptures. It is almost as if he strips the sculptures of all exterior embellishments to arrive at their basic sense of movement” (Y. Dalmia, The Making of Modern Indian Art: The Progressives, New Delhi, 2001, p. 111).
Husain’s seated woman perhaps is one of the iconic village heroines that the artist returned repeatedly to in his works from the 1950s onwards. The cylindrical implement and vessel next to her suggest the act of pounding grain or churning, quotidian tasks rooted in domestic life in rural India. In stripping this body of ornament, Husain aligns sacred sculptural rhythm with the dignity of everyday labor. The bright, non-naturalistic flashes of color he uses point to the third influence Husain elucidated from his 1948 trip. Here the artist uses this color sparingly to accentuate the sculptural quality of the composition and to breathe life into his protagonist, an anonymous seated village woman who for Husain became a recurring emblem of a modern, independent India.
Maqbool Fida Husain would return to the three guiding principles he noted above, rooted in classical Indian traditions, many times over the course of his long and illustrious career. The present lot, depicting a seated woman, is a great exemplar of this. The pose of the female figure is one that first appeared in Husain’s work as early as the 1950s. The high breasts, slightly twisted torso, accentuated hip and rhythmic curves recall Indian temple sculpture such as the Mithuna figures at Khajuraho, where the body is conceived as architectural rhythm rather than erotic display. Here, Husain treats the figure, even in palette, almost as if carved from stone, giving weight and compression to his protagonist. The figure is not eroticized but austere, illustrating what the art historian Yashodhara Dalmia noted about the artist’s portraits of women. “Husain's women, far from arousing passion, are ascetic without any of the abundant sexuality found in Indian sculptures. It is almost as if he strips the sculptures of all exterior embellishments to arrive at their basic sense of movement” (Y. Dalmia, The Making of Modern Indian Art: The Progressives, New Delhi, 2001, p. 111).
Husain’s seated woman perhaps is one of the iconic village heroines that the artist returned repeatedly to in his works from the 1950s onwards. The cylindrical implement and vessel next to her suggest the act of pounding grain or churning, quotidian tasks rooted in domestic life in rural India. In stripping this body of ornament, Husain aligns sacred sculptural rhythm with the dignity of everyday labor. The bright, non-naturalistic flashes of color he uses point to the third influence Husain elucidated from his 1948 trip. Here the artist uses this color sparingly to accentuate the sculptural quality of the composition and to breathe life into his protagonist, an anonymous seated village woman who for Husain became a recurring emblem of a modern, independent India.