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1915-2011


Maqbool Fida Husain, (born 1915, Pandharpur, Maharashtra) popularly known as MF Husain, was one of India's best known artists. He was more popularly known for his devotion to the Bollywood Diva Madhuri Dixit.

According to Forbes magazine, he has been called the "Picasso of India". After a long, successful career his work suddenly became controversial in 1996, when he was 81 years old, following the publication of an article about nude images of Hindu deities painted in the 1970s.
Husain comes from a Muslim Indian family. His mother died when he was one and a half years old. His father remarried and moved to Indore, where Husain went to school. In 1935, he moved to Bombay and was admitted to the Sir J. J. School of Art.
He started off by painting cinema hoardings.

Husain first became well-known as an artist in the late 1940s. In 1947, he joined the Progressive Artists' Group, founded by Francis Newton Souza. This was a clique of young artists who wished to break with the nationalist traditions established by the Bengal school of art and to encourage an Indian avant-garde, engaged at an international level. In 1952, his first solo exhibition was held at Zürich and over the next few years, his work was widely seen in Europe and U.S.. In 1955, he was awarded the prestigious Padma Shree prize by the Government of India.
In 1967, he made his first film, Through the Eyes of a Painter. It was shown at the Berlin Film Festival and won a Golden Bear.
M. F. Husain was a special invitee along with Pablo Picasso at the Sao Paulo Biennial in 1971. He has been awarded the Padma Bhushan in 1973 and was nominated to the Rajya Sabha in 1986. He was awarded the Padma Vibhushan in 1991.
Husain went on to become the highest paid painter in India. His single canvases have fetched up to $2 million at a recent Christie's auction.

He has also worked (produced & directed) on few movies, including Gaja Gamini (with his muse Madhuri Dixit who was the subject of a series of his paintings which he signed Fida). The film was intended as a tribute to Ms. Dixit herself. In this film she can be seen portraying various forms and manifestations of womanhood including the muse of Kalidasa, the Mona Lisa, a rebel, and musical euphoria. He went on to make Meenaxi: A Tale of Three Cities (with Tabu). His autobiography is being made into a movie tentatively titled "The Making of the Painter.", starring Shreyas Talpade as the young Husain.
The Peabody Essex Museum (PEM) (USA, Massachusetts) showed a solo exhibition from 4 November 2006 to 3 June 2007. It exhibited Husain’s paintings inspired by the Hindu epic, Mahabharata.
At the age of 92 Husain was to be given the prestigious Raja Ravi Varma award by the government of Kerala. The announcement led to controversy in Kerala and some Sangh Parivar organisations campaigned against the granting of the award and petitioned the Kerala courts. The Kerala High Court granted an intermin order to stay the granting of the award until the petition had been disposed of.
In early 2008, Husain’s Battle of Ganga and Jamuna: Mahabharata 12, a large diptych, from the Hindu epic, fetched $1.6 million, setting a world record at Christie's South Asian Modern and Contemporary Art sale.

In the 1990s some of Husain's works became controversial because of their portrayal of Hindu deities in the nude. The paintings in question were created in 1970, but did not become an issue until 1996, when they were printed inVichar Mimansa, a Hindi monthly magazine, which published them in an article headlined "M.F. Husain: A Painter or Butcher". In response, eight criminal complaints were filed against Husain. In 2004, Delhi High Court dismissed these complaints of "promoting enmity between different groups ... by painting Hindu goddesses — Durga and Sarswati — in an uncharitable manner hurting the sentiments of Hindus".
The controversy escalated to the extent that in 1998 Husain's house was attacked by Hindu groups like Bajrang Dal and art works were vandalised. The leadership of Shiv Sena endorsed the attack. Twenty six Bajrang Dal activists were arrested by the police. Protests against Husain also led to the closure of an exhibition in London, England.
In February 2006, Husain was charged with hurting sentiments of people because of his nude portraits of Hindu gods and goddesses.
A series of cases were brought against him and a court case related to the alleged obscene depiction of Hindu goddesses in his paintings resulted in issuing a non-bailable warrant against Husain after he failed to respond to summons. There were also reportedly death threats. The artist left the country stating that "matters are so legally complicated that I have been advised not to return home". Now living in Dubai and London, he continues to stay away from India, but has expressed a strong desire to return, despite fears that he may be arrested and tortured in connection with these cases. A recent Supreme Court order has suspended an arrest warrant for Husain. The law ministry has examined half-a-dozen works by Husain and told the government that prosecutors would have a strong case against him if they sued him for deliberately hurting religious feelings

In February 6, 2006 issue, India Today, a national English weekly published an advertisement titled "Art For Mission Kashmir". This advertisement contains a painting of Bharatmata (Mother India) as a nude woman posed across a map of India with the names of Indian States on various parts of her body. The exhibition was organised by Nafisa Ali of Action India (NGO) and Apparao Art Gallery.
Organizations like Hindu Jagruti Samiti and VHP have protested persistently against Husain displaying the painting on the websites and even in exhibitions in north Europe. As a result, on February 7, 2006 Husain apologised and promised to withdraw the painting from an auction.
The painting later appeared on Husain's official website.

Husain's film Meenaxi: A Tale of Three Cities was pulled out of movie theatres a day after some Muslim organisations raised objections to one of the songs in it. The All-India Ulema Council complained that the Qawwali song ‘Noor-un-Ala-Noor’ was blasphemous. It argued that the song contained words directly taken from the Quran. The council was supported by Muslim organisations like the Milli Council, All-India Muslim Council, Raza Academy, Jamiat-ul-Ulema-e-Hind and Jamat-e-Islami.
Husain's son stated that the words were a phrase referring to divine beauty that were being sung by the central character played by Tabu. He said there was no intention to offend.

The artistic community has been supportive as well as critical. Krishan Khanna, one of Husain's contemporaries, stated that "It's not just Husain's but the entire artist community's lives which are at stake. Anybody and everybody can file a case against us now. Anyone can infringe upon our lives". Others who have expressed anger at the "vicious campaigns" against Husain, include filmmaker Saeed Mirza, social activist Nafisa Ali, theatre personality M. K. Raina and a host of other artistes, art critics and art gallery owners. Salil Tripathi, writing in the International Herald Tribune, notes that Hindu goddesses have regularly been portrayed in the nude by Hindu artists. Tripathi asserts that, “It is hypocritical to place curbs on Husain's artistic freedom. What's more shameful is that a government that claims to be the secular alternative to Hindu nationalists is threatening to prosecute Husain. This does not do India proud; it adds to India's disgrace”
Other Indian artists have expressed criticism. Satish Gujral has gone on record to ask him whether he will be bold enough to treat icons of Islam in the same manner. However Gujral says he deeply regrets the way Husain was treated and forced into an exile because of what he terms "the mob culture". According to a senior Hindu artist and former President, Bombay Art Society, Gopal Adivrekar, “Nothing is bad in being creative but the artists should not go for such artwork, which may hurt the sentiments of a segment of the society”
Writing in The Pioneer, Chandan Mitra wrote “As long as such a law exists in the statutes, nobody can be faulted for approaching the courts against Hussain's objectionable paintings, nor can the judiciary be pilloried for ordering action against the artist for his persistent and deliberate refusal to appear before the court”

In response to the controversy, Husain's admirers have petitioned the government to grant Husain the Bharat Ratna, India's highest award. According to Shashi Tharoor, who supports the petition, it praises Husain because his "life and work are beginning to serve as an allegory for the changing modalities of the secular in modern India — and the challenges that the narrative of the nation holds for many of us. This is the opportune and crucial time to honour him for his dedication and courage to the cultural renaissance of his beloved country"




This biography is licensed under the GFDL. It uses material from the Wikipedia article Maqbul Fida Husain

Maqbul Fida Husain (auch anglisierend Maqbool Fida Husain, meist nur M.F. Husain; Devanagari: मकबूल फ़िदा हुसैन; * 17. September 1915 in Pandharpur, Maharashtra) ist ein indischer Maler, Grafiker, Fotograf und Filmemacher. Er gehört zu den renommiertesten und international anerkannten indischen Malern des 20. Jahrhunderts.

Seine Werke sind in einem modifizierten kubistischen Stil gemalt. Er hat als Themen - meist jeweils Gemälde-Serien - unter anderem Mohandas K. Gandhi, Mutter Teresa, das Ramayana, das Mahabharata, die britische Kolonialherrschaft, Madhuri Dixit und Motive des Stadt- und Landlebens in Indien verarbeitet.
Nach langer und erfolgreicher Karriere gerieten einige seiner Werke in den späten 1990er Jahren in den Fokus hindunationalistischer Extremisten und M. F. Husain verließ Indien, nachdem sein Leben bedroht wurde.

Maqbul Fida Husain entstammt einer moslemischen indischen Familie. Seine Mutter starb, als er eineinhalb Jahre alt war. Sein Vater heiratete wieder, und sie zogen nach Indore, wo Husain zur Schule ging. 1935 ging er nach Bombay an die Sir J. J. School of Art. Er begann dort, seinen Lebensunterhalt mit dem Malen von Filmplakaten zu verdienen. In den späten 1940er Jahren wurde er als Künstler bekannt. 1947 trat er der Progressive Artists Group bei, einer von Francis Newton Souza gegründeten Künstlervereinigung, die den Bruch mit künstlerischen Konventionen und die Herausbildung einer indischen Avantgarde mit internationalem Anspruch zum Ziel hatte. 1952 hatte M. F. Husain seine erste Einzelausstellung im Ausland, in Zürich. In den darauffolgenden Jahren wurden seine Werke in Europa und den USA gezeigt.
1966 wurde ihm der Padma Shri verliehen, später erhielt er auch den Padma Bhushan. Sein erster Film, der dokumentarische Streifen Through the Eyes of a Painter gewann bei der Berlinale 1967 den Goldenen Bär in der Kategorie Kurzfilm.
Maqbul Fida Husain wurde zum höchstdotierten Maler Indiens, seine Leinwände erhielten bis zu 2 Millionen Dollar bei jüngsten Christie's-Auktionen. In Anerkennung seiner Leistungen wurde Husain 1987 für sechs Jahre in die Rajya Sabha, das Oberhaus des indischen Parlaments, berufen.
Die Schauspielerin Madhuri Dixit wurde für eine Serie von Gemälden seine Muse, er drehte mit ihr auch den Film Gaja Gamini. Mit Tabu produzierte er den Film Meenaxi: A Tale of Three Cities. Seine Autobiografie soll unter dem Titel The Making of the Painter verfilmt werden.

In den 1990er Jahren entbrannte eine Kontroverse um einige Gemälde M. F. Husains. Die umstrittenen Werke stammen aus den 1970er Jahren und bilden nackte hinduistische Gottheiten ab. Nachdem die Bilder 1996 in einer Hindu-Zeitung abgedruckt wurden, eskalierte der öffentliche Aufruhr und Mitglieder der hindunationalistischen Partei Shiv Sena drangen in Husains Haus ein und zerstörten Kunstwerke. Daraufhin ging er eine Zeit lang nach London ins Exil. Eine Anzeige gegen ihn wegen der "Förderung von Feindseligkeiten zwischen verschiedenen Gruppen durch das Malen der Hindugöttinnen Durga und Saraswati in einer die Gefühle von Hindus verletzenden Weise" wurde vom Delhi High Court 2004 zurückgewiesen. Husain wurde Anfang 2006 in gleicher Angelegenheit wegen "Verletzung des Volksempfindens" kurzzeitig verhaftet. In einigen Städten in Indien wurden einstweilige Verfügungen gegen Ausstellungen mit seinen Werken erwirkt. Proteste gegen ihn führten auch zur Schließung einer Ausstellung seiner Werke in London. Der Künstler lebt derzeit hauptsächlich bei seinem Sohn in Dubai während in Indien die Beschlagnahme seines Eigentums vorangetrieben wird.
Als Antwort auf diese Auseinandersetzungen haben Bewunderer Husains, unter anderen Shashi Tharoor, eine Petition an die indische Regierung gerichtet, ihm den Bharat Ratna, Indiens höchsten Zivilorden, zu verleihen. Zur Begründung bringen sie vor, dass M. F. Husains Leben und Werk mittlerweile als Allegorie für die sich verändernden Modalitäten des Säkularen im modernen Indien und die Herausforderungen, die die Geschichte der Nation für viele mit sich bringt, verstanden werden könne. Es sei jetzt die richtige und entscheidende Zeit, ihn für seinen Mut und seine Hingabe an die kulturelle Renaissance seines geliebten Landes zu ehren.
Im September 2008 wies die Supreme Court of India hindunationalistische Versuche einer Strafverfolgung Husains wegen seiner Gemälde nackter Hindugottheiten endgültig zurück.
Maqbool Fida Husain, (Né le17 septembre 1915 à Pandharpur, Inde) plus connu sous le nom de M.F. Husain, est un artiste et peintre indien célébre.

D'après le magasine Forbes, il est le "Picasso de l'Inde". Après une longue carrière, son travail est devenu controversé en 1996, alors qu'il a 81 ans, à la suite d'une publication sur des peintures de dieux hindous représentés nus, produits dans les années 70.

Husain vient d'une famille indienne musulmane. Sa mère meurt alors qu'il a un an et demi. Son père se remarie et ils déménagent à Indore. En 1935, il part à Bombay et entre à la Sir J. J. School of Art. Il peint d'abord des décors de cinéma. Sa notoriété grandit dans les années 40. En 1947, il rejoint le Progressive Artists' Group fondé par Francis Newton Souza, une clique de jeunes artistes désireux de rompre avec l'école bengalaise et d'encourager l'avant-garde à un niveau international. En 1952, sa première exposition en solo se tient à Zurich. En 1966, il reçoit le prix Padma Shree et le prix Padma Bhushan. L'année suivante, il réalise le film Through the Eyes of a Painter qui reçoit l'Ours de Berlin. Husain devient un des peintres les plus cotés d'Inde. Certaines de ses toiles ont atteint 2 millions de dollars US chez Christie's. Le Parlement Indien l'a nommé dans la Rajya Sabha, la Chambre Haute du Parlement.
Il a également produit et dirigé des films, dont Gaja Gamini (avec sa muse Madhuri Dixit) et Meenaxi: A Tale of Three Cities (avec Tabu). Son autobiographie est en train d'être adaptée dans un film dont le titre est pour le moment "The Making of the Painter.", avec Shreyas Talpade dans le rôle de Husain.

Dans les années 90, certains travaux de Husain déclenchent une controverse, représentant des déités hindoues nues. Les peintures incriminées ont été produites dans les années 70, mais n'ont pas attiré l'attention avant 1996, quand elles furent reproduites dans un magazine mensuel Hindou Vichar Mimansa. En résulta 8 plaintes déposées contre Husain. En 2004, la Haute Cour de Delhi rejeta les accusations portées de 'soutenir les inimités entre différentes communautés...en représentant des déesses (Durga et Saraswati) d'une manière à heurter la sensibilité des Hindous'.
En Octobre 1996, un groupe d'activistes du Bajrang Dal pénétrent dans la galerie Herwitz à Ahmedabad, dans le batiment Husain-Doshi Gufa construit par Balkrisna Doshi et détruisent 23 tapisseries et 28 peintures de Husain. La controverse grandit à tel point qu'en 1998, la maison de Husain est attaquée par le Bajrang Dal et des oeuvres sont détruites. Les leaders de Shiv Sena revendiquent l'attaque.
En février 2006, Husain est à nouveau arrêté et accusé de 'blesser les sentiments des gens' à cause de ses portraits de déesses nues.
Une série de plaintes sont déposées contre lui, et après qu'il a refusé de se présenter devant les cours, un mandat d'arrêt est lancé. Il est également menacé de mort à plusieurs reprises. L' artiste quitte le pays en disant "les choses sont devenues légalement si compliquées qu'on m'a conseillé de quitter le pays."
Husain habite aujourd'hui entre Dubai et Londres, il se tient à distance de l'Inde, mais exprime souvent son désir de retour, malgré sa crainte d'être arrêté. La Cour suprême a récemment suspendu son mandat d'arrêt contre M.F. Husain.

Le 6 février 2006, le magazine India Today, publie une publicité pour "Art For Mission Kashmir". Celle-ci représente entre autres Bharatmata (Mother India, l'Inde sous les traits d'une femme) nue avec les noms des États de l'Inde sur le corps.
Le film Meenaxi: A Tale of Three Cities a été retiré des cinémas après que des organisations musulmanes protestent contre une des chansons du film. Le conseil des Ulemas de l'Inde proteste contre la chanson Qawwali ‘Noor-un-Ala-Noor’. La chanson contient des mots issus du Coran et serait donc un blasphème.
La communauté artistique l'a soutenu Krishan Khanna, Syed Mirza, l'activiste Nafisa Ali, M. K. Raina ont protesté contre la campagne contre lui. D'autres ont été plus critiques comme Satish Gujral ou Chandan Mitra. L'État communiste du Kerala lui a accordé le prix Raja Ravi Varma pour son œuvre.
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