MAQBOOL FIDA HUSAIN (1913-2011)
PROPERTY FROM A PRIVATE COLLECTION, NEW DELHI
MAQBOOL FIDA HUSAIN (1913-2011)

Untitled (Kerala)

Details
MAQBOOL FIDA HUSAIN (1913-2011)
Untitled (Kerala)
signed 'Husain' (upper left)
oil on canvas
35 3/8 x 23 ¼ in. (90 x 59 cm.)
Provenance
Christie's New York, 23 September 2004, lot 191
Acquired from the above by the present owner

Lot Essay

Lost is the passage of sound
In my jungle.
Today the burnt bamboos
Have scratched
The heart of silent sky,
And greens sucked
In elephant jugs.
White tusks daggered
Inside the stomach of black mountain.
They say:
For seven days
The passage of sound was lost.

Starting as a painter of billboards for films and designer of children’s furniture, Maqbool Fida Husain held a large repertoire of forms that he freely and playfully accommodated in his paintings. This joyful composition which juxtaposes an elephant and a tiger in a bamboo forest illuminates the artist's uninhibited approach to the vernacular, bringing it to a new scale of observation. It was after his visits to Kerala in the 1960s that elephants would become a central subject in his body of work.

The warmth and energy that the artist captures in this painting owe as much to his unique compositional assemblage as they do to the swift and fluid strokes of color in the animals and the dense green jungle in the background. This painting manifests Husain’s ability to transfer the concerns of centuries past into a present-day context, representing the magnificence of rural life and its festivals that he observed during his numerous travels across India.

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