Can and will India finally recognize its most famous modem artist?

Can India rise above its feeble responses of recent years and recognize its most famous modem artist with a museum that will house his work? What will India do now about the memory and artistic legacy of this legend?

The above question is asked by noted art writer John Elliott in his blog ‘Riding the Elephant' blog series. Indian politicians squabbled about perceived rights and wrongs of Husain’s virtual exile from India even as tributes were paid by his son Owais and by friends at London’s Dorchester Hotel. MF was remembered at the meeting for the vast span of his life through most of the 20th century and into the 21st – from 'bullock cart to Bugatti' as one family friend put it (there is a Bugatti Veyron 16.4 in his famous Dubai collection of cars).

Meanwhile people in India could still not make up their minds whether to honor this great painter or leave him forever exiled their minds. Manmohan Singh, the prime minister, who did little if anything during MF’s lifetime to encourage him to return home and defy right-wing Hindu fanatics who were attacking him and his paintings, had the gall to talk about the 'national loss' of an iconic artist….whose genius left a deep imprint on Indian art”.

Too late, the government offered to facilitate the return of the body. Right-wing political leaders, who had helped to keep him in exile while he was alive, also stated that controversies should now be forgotten and he should be brought back to India, but more fanatical voices continued to attack him on the internet. Friends of MF tell me that he definitely wanted to return to India – though he acknowledged that his wealth had grown substantially in recent years when news of his exile spread his fame and boosted his prices.

Providing the answer to his own questions, John Elliott notes: “India welcomed Anish Kapoor, the Anglicized Indian-born artist, with two big exhibitions last year. Rather more urgent than a Kapoor sculpture, surely, is an M.F.Husain Museum in Delhi or Mumbai.”

(Information courtes: ‘Riding the Elephant blog’)