The life and journey of late MF Husan

Maqbool Fida Husain, born on September 17, 1915, in Pandharpur, Maharashtra, and grew up in Indore. His father was an accountant. Rather than becoming a tailor’s apprentice, he decided to try his luck in Mumbai, where he found work as a ‘graphics wallah’ painting the vibrant billboards advertising Bollywood films. He also designed toys and children’s furniture.

Though he attained immense fame as a painter, he remained a film fan throughout his life. After seeing Ms. Dixit in ‘Who Am I to You?’ (1994), one of the most successful Hindi films ever made, he adopted her as his muse, painting hundreds of portraits and directing her in the 2000 film ‘Gaja Gamini,’ which he also produced and in which he invested $2 million. He later directed in ‘Meenaxi: A Tale of Three Cities’ (2004). Neither film was a commercial success.

His political troubles stemmed from a group of paintings, made in the early 1970s, that included a depiction of the goddess Durga copulating with a tiger, the goddess Lakshmi perched naked on the elephant head of Ganesh, the god of success, and a nude Saraswati, the Hindu goddess of knowledge.

In response to them, several lawsuits were filed against him for “promoting enmity between different groups.” Although the Delhi High Court dismissed the complaints in 2004, Mr. Husain became a lightning rod for political and religious tensions between Hindus and Muslims. An angry mob ransacked his gallery in Ahmedabad, and members of the far-right Hindu group invaded his house and vandalized paintings.

The lawsuits kept coming. Mr. Husain observed the turmoil with a cool eye. He once invited a panel composed of an art critic, a lawyer and a Hindu nationalist to review his work. If they found any of it offensive, he said, he would throw it into a fire in a traditional Hindu sacrificial rite.

In 1986, as a reward for his status as a national treasure, he was appointed by Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi to the upper house of the Indian Parliament. After leaving India, Mr. Husain, divided his time between Dubai and London in exile. But he always remained an Indian at heart and in his art. India’s arguably most internationally famous painter, MF Husain died on Thursday in London at 95, last June...