A spotlight on India’s late legend

A month-long show of late MF Husain's works at The Institute of Contemporary Indian Art (ICIA), Mumbai ends on January 13. In a tribute to him, we present some interesting facets of his life and career:

• Husain was considered a maverick. He chose to go barefoot, like most poor Indians, twirling an oversized paint brush at posh parties and coffee shops. He remained a painter who enjoyed street art, and the color and popular forms of art.
  
  
• Husain was most captivated by the cinema and relished the moving images. They had a lasting impact on him. In 1967 his film “Through the Eyes of a Painter” won the Golden Bear award at the Berlin Film Festival.
  
  
• The Bollywood-loving painter also made Hindi films that celebrated Indian womanhood, especially peasants and women in traditional dress. His series of lithographs and oils on Madhuri Dixit, a Bollywood diva of the 1990s, were very popular.
  
  
• He directed the film Gaja Gamini as a tribute to the actress in whom he said he had found a muse. He also directed a film, Meenaxi - A Tale of Three Cities. The lead was played by another Bollywood actress, Tabu, whose grace Husain said inspired him to make the film.
  
  
• The maverick artist belonged to the elite club of Indian painters like Tyeb Mehta and SH Raza whose works have sold for more than $1m. In 2008, his ‘Battle of Ganga and Yamuna’ fetched $1.6m at Christies even as angry Hindu protesters lined outside the auction house condemning him.
  
  
• His decision of a self-imposed exile upon himself, pained by a spate of notices, cases and threats to his life. His deities painted in the nude, first in the 1970s, invited charge of obscenity. Despite the controversies, which dogged him, he was a genius and a torchbearer of creative freedom. Husain was working till his last breath, dividing his time between Qatar, London and Dubai where he had his home, a studio and a museum.