Maqbool Fida Husain
Recognized as one of India’s most significant Modernist artists of the 20th century, Maqbool Fida Husain (or M.F. Husain) was a founding member of the Bombay Progressive Artists’ Group and pioneered a style that synthesized elements of Cubism with depictions of Indian life and culture. One facet of his career that has gone underexamined, however, is his friendship and professional relationship with art collector Davida Herwitz. In a new solo show at New York’s Aicon Gallery, “A Beautiful Friendship: Husain & Herwitz,” this connection serves as a starting point for revisiting Husain’s work.
Husain was born in Bombay province in 1915, and early creative endeavors included painting cinema posters and billboards for Bollywood films. The British partition of India and Pakistan in 1947 initially inspired the formation of the Bombay Progressive Artists’ Group, spurred by a desire to embrace Modern forms of artmaking within the context of Indian visual culture.
Husain ultimately went on to exhibit internationally, and over the course of his career also produced a number of films. Before his death in 2011, he achieved the title of the highest-priced painter in India when one of his works sold at Christie’s for $1.6 million in 2008. The artist posthumously reclaimed that title this year with the sale of the 1954 Untitled (Gram Yatra), again at Christie’s New York, which sold for $13.8 million.
Before the record-breaking sales and international acclaim, Herwitz helped to lay the bedrock of Husain’s career. Herwitz first visited India in 1961, and came across Husain’s 1995 canvas Zameen at the National Gallery of Modern Art in New Delhi. Meeting the collector, Husain introduced her to his contemporaries, starting a long and fruitful relationship between artist and patron. Herwitz amassed a collection of Indian art comprising some three thousand works. Over two decades, the artist she collected the most of was Husain himself.
While the significance of the artist and patron relationship is emphasized in pre-Modern periods of art history, it nonetheless has continued to play a pivotal role in the fostering and supporting of artists through to today and cannot be overlooked in the rise in prominence Husain experienced in his career.
The show presents an intriguing new angle into the life and work of Husain, with half the works on view in the Aicon Gallery show hailing from the Chester and Davida Herwitz Collection. Seen through the lens of his generative relationship with Herwitz, the styles and themes explored across the selection of works illuminates not only Husain’s innovative work, but why it was—and continues—to be championed by collectors.
