Akbar Padamsee, Untitled (Mirror Image), Lot 424. Estimate: $600,000-800,000 Image Courtesy: Christie’s.

At Christie’s Asian Art Week, works by artists, including Vasudeo S. Gaitonde, Tyeb Mehta, Adi Davierwalla, Akbar Padamsee, Jehangir Sabavala, Ganesh Pyne, Manjit Bawa, and others, will go under the hammer at the South Asian Modern + Contemporary art auction in Rockefeller Center.

Manjit Bawa, Untitled (Krishna and Cow), Lot 475. Image Courtesy: Christie’s. Estimate: $350,000-500,000.

The auction will offer a total of 76 lots led by an important work painted by Vasudeo S. Gaitonde (1924-2001) in 1996. ‘Untitled’ (Lot 414) is an incandescent painting from 1996; while immediately striking, it maintains the restrained balance of light, texture, colour, and space that the artist perfected over the course of his career.

VS Gaitonde, Untitled *1996). Image Courtesy: Christie’s. Estimate: $2,800,000-3,500,000.

Against a ground methodically layered in tones of vermillion, orange and yellow, Gaitonde inscribes a series of enigmatic hieroglyphic forms that seem almost like embers scorched into the translucent surface, pulsating with a unique meaning for each viewer (estimate: $2,800,000-3,500,000).An advocate of Zen Buddhism, Gaitonde saw painting as a spiritual endeavour and not something to be rushed, either in conception or execution. He painted, on average, just five or six canvases a year.

Maqbool Fida Husain, Untitled, Lot 452, Estimate: $200,000-300,000
The auction will take place September 13 at Christie’s, 20 Rockefeller Center, New York, 10 am.
Credits – https://www.architecturaldigest.in/content/indian-modernist-masterpieces-go-hammer-christies-auction-new-york/#s-cust0

The post Indian Modernist masterpieces to go under the hammer at Christie’s auction in New York first appeared on Indian Art News.

M F Husain. Traditional Indian Festivals, 2008–2011.  Photo © The Victoria and Albert Museum, London

At 95, when he died in exile in London, MF Husain was still painting several hours a day. He dreamed of returning to India, his muse. When he breathed his last, the artist was immersed in Indian history and was researching its rich civilisation and painting it on his canvas. In the series, titled Indian Civilisation, commissioned by Usha Mittal, wife of steel tycoon Lakshmi Mittal, the artist was to create 32 giant triptychs to celebrate the nation.

Before his death, Husain had managed to paint only eight of the panels. Exhibited at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London in 2014, the works will now be showcased in the US for the first time. The exhibition, “India Modern: The Paintings of MF Husain”, will be held at the Art Institute of Chicago. “Interspersed among centuries of Indian sculpture on view in the Alsdorf Galleries, Husain’s paintings are presented in dialogue with and contextualised within the continuum of Indian art,” says a press statement.
Each triptych in the series displays a different aspect of Indian culture. In Three Dynasties, Husain paints interconnected panels of Mughal, British and Mauryan rule, with the Ashoka pillar in the centre. If Hindu Triad is a painting of the three principal gods of the Hindu pantheon — Brahma the creator, Vishnu the preserver, and Shiva the destroyer — the painting, Traditional Indian Festivals is a tribute to the celebrations across regions and religious of India.

In Language of Stone, Husain uses the words of Rabindranath Tagore, “How the language of stone surpasses the languages of man”. The triptych, Tale of Three Cities, has Varanasi at its centre, with Delhi on the left, and Kolkata being represented by its luminaries Rabindranath Tagore, Satyajit Ray and Mother Teresa.

The post An Exile’s Eye on India first appeared on Indian Art News.

When Google recently celebrated 130 years of the artist Jamini Roy, it put the spotlight on India’s first modernist. To look at works by Jamini Roy is to be drawn into the frame of simplicity and the lingua franca of folk idioms, set amidst rural idylls of Bengal. His dimly lit figures rise above pigments of pure colour, nestled between lithe lines. Peaceful emotive expressions seem to kindle human emotions as if flickering from the inside. This is the kinetic energy of modern master Jamini Roy, who could make a woman look surprisingly simple yet sensual, hidden within the folds of her sari. Women, boys and men, and tales from the Ramayana as well as of Mary and Christ, are the cornerstones of his creations, offering a rich and rustic palette that conjures a luxurious yet pristine scene: one where the art of drawing is akin to a ritual.

Of course, 130 years on, Indian contemporary art has found its market, and global recognition worldwide, with artists from the progressive school to young contemporaries like Jitish Kallat and Subodh Gupta and a host of others finding their own collectors and dealers alike, all over the globe. Artists like Sudip Roy, who won the Florence Biennale, echo the marvels of Da Vinci in his wash creation of Christ with thorns. Interest in contemporary Indian art practices goes back to more than five decades with buyers finding interest in the works of Bikash Bhattacharjee, Jogen Chowdhury and many more.

In 1993 when the Husain-Doshi ni Gufa opened at Ahmedabad, the American collectors Chester and David Herwitz came to watch the fanfare, as MF Husain opened the Gufa as a museum. While Husain sped between India’s states and cities like London and Dubai, there was Bengal’s great teacher, Bikash Bhattacharjee, creating canvasses and sketches in his own little studio. “He would make more than a 100 sketches or portraits every day,” says student Sanjay Bhattacharya. “I wish I had learnt that discipline.” In the 1980s, Bikash Bhattacharjee rejected traditional themes in pursuit of emotionally charged and visually direct depictions of contemporary life, such as street scenes of Calcutta. After graduating from art school, Bhattacharjee encountered American artist Andrew Wyeth’s paintings for the first time, recalling the way “…the differences of country, period and characters melted away.” Bhattacharjee became an avid collector of books on Wyeth, and he continued to explore Wyeth’s brush techniques and thematic preferences. Bhattacharjee shared Wyeth’s dramatic handling of light and shadow, creating scenes sympathetic in their compositional techniques and tonal gradations. The Peabody Essex Museum owned Bikash’s poignant work ‘Durga’ (1985) – a masterpiece in the art of portraiture. In the same show in the Chesta and David collection was a work of equal vintage value – Jogen Chowdhury’s ‘Gaanpati the Warrior’ (1977), and another work called ‘Couple’. His ‘Gaanpati the Warrior’ executed in 1977 is a jewel beyond compare for its fluid lines and its attractive fervour of blending the spiritual and the sensual. The charismatic contour of Jogen Chowdhury always has this ability to draw you into its maw. “There is a tremendous power in the stillness of the subject, a force which is no less than apparently a matter in great speed. Stillness is a form of speed while not in force. A certain tension is essential in artwork which is the result of the total effect of composition, colour, rhythm or sensitive lines,” said Jogen Chowdhury to this critic years ago. Also in this blue chip collection was ‘In Sequence’ (1981) – by the mandarin of the metaphor Tyeb Mehta. Tyeb’s flat colours and his shifting planes created a corollary that reflected the resonance of an all-time genius who created art for his own journey of inner and outer references. Inspiration from real life in volatile regions can bring new meaning to what it feels to be a troubled artist. And Tyeb Mehta spent many years in the contemplation of suffering. He condensed long histories of violence and melancholia into the most austere forms; he delivered the freight of trauma through isolated figures delineated in planes of flat colours that vibrate against one another without discreet intervals of tonal shading. Fast forward to the present day scenario – the famed Manida – KG Subramanyan – who was a mentor to six generations of students in Shantiniketan and Baroda – passed away leaving a yawning gap in the lifestyles of pedagogues in art colleges all over the country. Manida’s exhibition held at Aakriti Art Gallery in Delhi was a testimony to his genius, his avid cerebral wit and his unending passion for the drawn line. A radical who often debated Western notions of art criticism he didn’t believe in Seneca’s words that ‘Art is long, life is short.’ Among all his works shown and reflected upon, it is his gods and goddesses at ‘Project 88’ that remain in the memory for the brilliance of composition and modern reckonings in myth and traditions. While art moves in leaps and bounds, it is the czar of Indian interior design, Rajeev Sethi, who spoke multiple languages in his conception of ‘Jaya he’ at T2 Mumbai Airport, as an art corridor that transcended indigenous as well as contemporary art practices, when he juxtaposed different languages and crafts to create a seamless flow of journeys in myriad sensibilities. Rooted in pride for the subcontinent’s varied heritage and its legacy of creative enterprises, ‘Jaya he!’ has become a symbol of public private partnership (PPP) for a nation determined to enhance its rich history. In Delhi, NGMA’s recent celebration of 63 years nailed the idea of sculptors being practitioners of teaching as well as their own credo of creating within their own orbits. Devi Prasad Roy Chowdhury and Ram Kinkar Baij stand tall as India’s indigenous modernists who created for nourishing their own nectar of thoughts. In an age where artists in colleges do not want to draw and are using technology to translate images onto canvases, without creating human figures with their bare hands, this show, ITIHAAS, gives lessons on the power of originality and the credulous continuity of human hands in fashioning sculpture. With sculptors using resin and plastic and synthetic materials to fabricate sculptures, bronze as a medium is being pushed to the periphery and the language of multiplication and appropriation is taking over the ideation of originality. The Internet has spawned a cut-copy-paste generation and the art world now thrives on the word ‘inspiration’ being used to simply state an aping.

Uma Nair |  11 May 2017 9:17 PM |  New Delhi

The post Masters of Modern Art first appeared on Indian Art News.

The post Husain’s paintings fetch $4.7 million at New York auctions first appeared on Indian Art News.

Precious jade, modern masterpieces, museum-quality furniture and rare ceramics and porcelain are among thousands of art objects on offer during Christie’s Asia week sales in September.

The post Auction house gears up for week of Asian art sales first appeared on Indian Art News.

The post Alvida, Maqbool Fida: M.F. Husain, Free at Last first appeared on Indian Art News.

The man who celebrated Mahishasura and torched a new high at Christie’s with Times of India’s Celebration. Celebration, like the Shantiniketan triptych done a decade earlier, drew inspiration from the Charak festival, the spring festival of the Santhals. However, unlike the Santiniketan triptych that juxtaposes life and death, the work focused on the celebratory aspects of the festival and life itself.

The painting did not mark so much of a shift in emphasis, but a culmination of an experience. Images of torture and carnage, while not forgotten were instead transcended. They form the very stuff from which this Celebration derived meaning: as in alchemy, the dross had become gold. Celebration fetched a high of $317,500, in 2002—therein beginning Tyeb’s tryst with destiny, in the world of auctions.

M F Husain

The face of Indian contemporary art, living in exile since 2006, after his Bharat Mata bombed at an exhibition in Delhi. Yet, Husain’s best period was his early and middle ones. His Mahabharata, Ganesha and Mahabali series being the fountainhead of contemporary reality. Often using the presence of a group of women and elephants to heighten the importance of the central figure, the structure of the grouping accentuated the monumental character of the individual figures he chose to represent.

While surrealistic juxtaposition and displacement of associated symbols heightened the ambiguity of his pictorial world, Husain frequently invested the human form with an archaic and timeless feeling. He depicts them as if abstracted from time and renders them along with the signs and symbols. However, what arrests the eye is the nature of sensual reality he transformed with zeal. Sex, if seen as a final analysis, took an abstract form, viewed as an element within the equation — an instrumentation for seeking and establishing identity.

Bose Krishnamchari (Artist curator)

HE is India’s Vik Munz. His ideas are simple—as an artist curator-he goes wild, picking and choosing from the nation’s artist’s studios—and in every endeavour he tries to reflect his process of discovery and an eclectic elegance. Curating for Bose Krishnamachari is about a sense of play and a cohesive focus-in which one work reverberates into the next, to create “a residual effect.”

Guest curator at ARCO Madrid, with 20 years of work behind him, Bose handles crating in the context of a philatelic feel. Straightforward, forthright and now a face of BMB Gallery in Mumbai, his shows like Double Enders and National Highway have proved that curating is not merely gathering works to reflect a bazaar, but discovering and reflecting resonances beyond the obvious.

T V Santosh

Known as India’s Zen monk, Santhosh’s untiring search for an understanding of the state of world politics, war and media is expressed most effectively in his paintings and installations. Reconstructing ideas from a science fiction film, the evocative Last Supper or even Hitler’s dogs, Santos uses his signature style of turning a positive photographic image into its negative and creating paintings and installations that have an eerily surreal quality.

In his paintings, he deliberately eliminates the details of anything specific or local in the image and the subject takes on a much grander scale and, like most of his recent works, addresses the universal concerns of war, terrorism and violence.

His art leaves a lasting impression on its viewer and implores the audience to re-evaluate the politics of war and terrorism — a plea to identify the real enemy.

S H Raza

The abstractionist who lives in Paris and has recently finished a show in London. “The English name they’ve given my show is The Five Rays of Raza, But for me, my work represents ‘panchtatva’ or the five elements’.” It was in the 1970’s that Raza began his sojourn into the world of the Bindu.

In a strictly formal sense, Raza’s style seems to bear some relation to the Abstract Expressionist work of Frank Stella and Jasper Johns. However, while these artists were part of a theoretical discussion on the Formalist movement, Raza’s work addresses a more spiritual context.

The circle becomes less of a graphical component and more of a focal point representing concentrated energy. This concept has age-old precedents in meditative aids such as yantras and mandalas. And age has caught up with Raza, in a quaint departure from his usual. Raza confessed to Muzaffar Ali, at his birthday bash at Taj Mahal Hotel in Delhi, two years ago, that he wanted to marry a 19-year-old Bengali girl.

Jogen Chowdhury

The master of the contour. The most successful practitioner from the Bengal School. The satirist who creates folds out of skin. Jogen Chowdhury smiles as he creates and viewers can sense that his mood is lighthearted, even as he plays with the human figure. His lines are bold and free and his canvases in particular show a simplification of composition with a deceptive depth in textural terrain. The brilliant colours associated with the rural folk art traditions of Bengal appear in his work as two-dimensional linear forms set as bold planes of background colour replace his earlier sculpted human forms. Characterized by his elongated, caricature figures and preference for highly decorative surfaces, Jogen’s art draws equally from the natural and the psychological.

Sometimes a work can be a curious mix of still life and movement that contributes to an almost hypnotic effect. Jogen had once said: “There is also a tremendous power in the stillness of an object. A force that is no less than apparently an object in great speed. Stillness is a form of a speed while not in force. It has the possibility of the force in a different form.”

Sumedh Rajendran

Most intriguing was his show Chemical Smuggle at Vadehras in Delhi. He combines materials and compositions with an intricate élan. At the Christie’s Asian Contemporary and Chinese Art Auction, Hong Kong, 2008, his work went for a whopping HK$271,500 / ($34,955).Titled Promised and Them, the two wooden and steel sculptures had about them an elegant restraint as well as a gravitas of metaphoric moorings.

Deeply philosophic and equally at ease with literary contexts, it was his project for Khoj entitled Pseudo Homelands exhibited at Lahore, which made people sit up and take notice. His explanation ranked of wit and the insight of T.S. Eliot. “In landscapes marginalized by the hierarchy of power structure, negotiation is a mere theatre. In this maze of divisions and subjugations, that we tend to perceive as social harmony is only unexplained tragedies.” His titles too must be read in the context of what he wishes to state. But Sumedh becomes participant and observer. Betrayal Flush, More Dead Than Alive and Some Hard Hunger—each title is a personification of deep contemplative ideologies and thoughts.

Some Hard Hunger reflects a dog with an open jawline—the barrel shaped object that shapes the jawline is what entices the powerful relief sculpture, dealt with the phenomenon of a stifled and angst ridden urban existence—the paradoxes of patterns in the living and those who merely exist .

Subodh Gupta

He made Indian steel bartans fashionable. From his human skull called Very Hungry God to his Three Monkeys-Subbed Gupta invited viewers into his signature of vessels for Indian art. Almost like entering a vast Indian kitchen in perpetual, dizzying motion, his medium of towering tiffin bartans became the Subodh signature. His installations, typical of his deceptively simple works made of everyday objects, manages to refer to stereotypes of Indian life, rapidly changing routines in a global economy, and key historical cross-cultural exchanges.

International writers say Subodh Gupta’s post-modernist ideas channel far-ranging influences from Marcel Duchamp, Josef Beuys, Claes Oldenburg and Andy Warhol. However, his artistic vocabulary is firmly rooted in the vernacular of everyday India. Gupta – appropriation artist — ironically states, “I am the idol thief. I steal from the drama of Hindu life. Hindu kitchens are as important as prayer rooms. These pots are like something sacred, part of important rituals, and I buy them in a market. They think I have a shop, and I let them think it. I get them wholesale.”

Pushpamala

She is India’s most successful women artist for her ability to exploit the genre of her own portrait in her works. Her first solo (outside India) at Bose Pacia, New York was in 2004, before which she held her audiences with Phantom Lady or Kismet (1996-98). Shot mostly in night time Mumbai, the series has a rich, film-noir atmosphere and a surreal, Bollywood-style narrative structure that can be reshuffled for different showings. Pushpamala N. is chief actor as well as director, and she has a charismatic on-camera presence.

She played both the sisters in Phantom Lady with aplomb, and brought the same qualities to Golden Dreams (1998), a kind of woman-having-a-nervous-breakdown tale of romance and entrapment that concluded with the heroine holding an invisible opponent at gunpoint. She played with tints — the original black-and-white prints were hand coloured, giving them a slightly antique look, as was true of the 10 pictures in The Anguished Heart (2002), and a story of lost love that might have come straight from a Satyajit Ray film.

Jiten Thukral and Samir Tagra

The most happening duo on the auction scene-collaborating for the past 9 years. Jiten Thukral and Samir Tagra address issues in urban India through a variety of stylistic devices and media. Drawing from pop culture, history and street life, they present a graphic theatrical element in their works. Be it in the form of sculptures, paintings and installations, aesthetically speaking their works have a very ‘un-Indian’ and distinct leitmotif.

According to them their ‘un-Indian’ aesthetic has come naturally. When they look around everything is inspired, influenced and pursued with ‘un-Indian aesthetics’. They were trained as communication designers, their education being a mix of art and design principles. Observing and creating have become a part of their routine. The titles of their works have an edge of dramatis personae-Pscho Acoustics-01,Vector Classics,2005, Phone Now + 91 114174 0215- this is the reality of an urbanesque urge.

7 Jan 2010
Uma Nair
Economic Times

Aashu Maheshwari – One of the artists i would like to mention herein is “Jitesh Kallat” and his contribution to Indian Art.Also would mention Anju Dodiya and Atul Dodiya for their immence contribution to Indian Art.

The post 10 Indian artists who shaped the noughties first appeared on Indian Art News.

How do you go about choosing just one artist in 2009 who continued doing what an artist does best: painting with consistency, experimenting, picking up commissions of a certain scale, and commanding top-of-the-bracket prices in that genre? And who would most likely take this forward in 2010 as the face of Indian art and as, probably, its safest blue-chip investment?

Trends across 2009 were mostly erratic. Even top artists took a sabbatical, gallery movement before the India Art Summit was almost comatose, plummeting prices meant that most contemporary artists went out of circulation, and investor confidence in art was so low it impacted artists’ morale. It is indicative of contemporary art continuing to remain off-stage in 2010: these artists will show more than they sell, they will experiment more, and some like Jitish Kallat will have a huge impact as ambassadors as they present the intellectual face of Indian art internationally.

But no contemporary Indian artist can singly take on the onus of being the face of 2010 — they are showing less, prices still have to rise, and what many of us are getting to see at shows in India or abroad are old works. Others have still to achieve a record of consistency — something that had been ignored in the euphoria that was largely responsible for the crash in prices — and which is why the likes of Sunil Gawde or N S Harsha will have to wait for their spot in the sun.

Among the old guard, gallerists I spoke with put forward interesting suggestions ranging all the way from A Ramachandran to Krishen Khanna, whose works I admire but who have not had any path-breaking shows or created an especial stir to qualify for the role, to Satish Gujral, who it was pointed out has perhaps been India’s most consistent artist and one whose prices have not been impacted by the market. While that may be true, his largely “decorative” features and tag as a “society” artist continue to trip him up. Another friend’s suggestion that Paresh Maity be considered for his ability to re-invent himself held some merit, but Maity too has to fight off the “romantic” tag and travel some more distance to move from “investment-worthy” to “collector-worthy”.

It was surprising that almost no one I spoke to took cognizance of S H Raza’s great influence on the market — there is a frenzy around collecting him, his prices have remained high, there is a buzz around him every time he returns to India (even if the reason is the artist being invited to inaugurate a show of fakes of his own works!), and at auctions or in galleries, he continues to sell well. But the artist is slowing down because of health-related issues, likely to shift to India, and may take some time settling down before he resumes painting again. That hardly qualifies him as the face of 2010, though his success through the year is at least assured.

But by a huge margin, and quite clearly the face of 2009 that will remain the face of 2010, is M F Husain. There was a brief time a few years ago when Husain’s genius was eclipsed, when younger artists were being feted, when some of his peers commanded higher returns at auctions, when he was even dismissed as being too gimmicky or too market-driven. All those nay-sayers can now eat crow. Not only does he make news all the time, and despite staying away from India because of threats to his life (largely exaggerated, I believe, but adding to his aura as an artist-in-exile), Husain continues to thrive.

Recent auctions have confirmed his price hierarchy among Indian artists (Tyeb Mehta, who died this year, has not been included in this survey of only living artists), and the scale of his commissions on the Arab civilisation will leave him richer by millions of dollars. Love him or not, you cannot ignore Husain, and if he remained in the news in 2009, he will continue to make headlines in 2010.

While many in this informal survey voted for Husain, Saffronart’s Dinesh Vazirani summed it up beautifully: “[Husain] has been working consistently throughout the year, mounting some very large exhibitions internationally. The beginning of the year saw his work in the Serpentine show, followed by a large commission from the Sheikha of Qatar. Even with no exhibitions in India, he is still present in the minds of the art world. He travels the world as an ambassador of Indian art bringing in new collectors at every stage. In spite of the slow year for Indian art, his prices in auctions have been good. He has taken his exile from India in the best possible spirit and continues to work with the same passion that he has had over the last 50 years.” Nothing more need be said.

Source – http://www.business-standard.com
Kishore Singh / New Delhi December 30, 2009

The post No Surprises, Really ! first appeared on Indian Art News.

NEW DELHI — In the heady celebration of the boom in India’s contemporary art market in recent years, an iconic artist has been conspicuous by his absence. Maqbool Fida Husain is hailed by many as India’s Picasso, and the 94-year-old artist’s paintings are coveted at international auctions, but galleries back home are afraid to show his works.

His paintings have drawn the wrath of hard-line Hindus who are incensed that some depict Hindu goddesses in the nude.

Angry protests, hundreds of court cases and arrest warrants drove the Muslim artist to exile in Dubai three years ago. And for the second year in a row, Husain’s paintings were not displayed at India’s biggest art extravaganza, which closed Saturday in New Delhi, triggering a renewed debate about creative freedom and religious sensitivities in this fractious Hindu-majority secular nation.

“M.F. Husain has become the symbol of freedom of expression in India today. Intolerance is on the rise, and displaying Husain in India is seen to be unsafe,” said K. Bikram Singh, author of an illustrated biography of Husain. “We say we are a multi-religious, multi-cultural society. But our secular values are hollow.”

The organizers of the India Art Summit said it was too risky to display Husain’s works without police protection against Hindu groups that have vowed to destroy them.

“We are not censoring Husain. The problem with displaying his works has been around for some time. We are victims, too,” said Neha Kirpal, associate director of the art fair.

The religious outrage over the nude paintings of Hindu goddesses, which came to light in the 1990s, is not unlike the anger in the United States that followed the 1989 exhibition of a photo of a urine-soaked crucifix by Andres Serrano. Since then, some Hindu groups have carried on a sustained campaign to attack auctions and exhibitions of his works and even of his reprints. His effigies have been burned on the streets and art galleries now tuck his works away from the public eye. Hundreds of police complaints and court cases are pending against Husain.
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In 2007, a southern Indian state announced an award for Husain, but quickly canceled the ceremony when Hindu activists threatened not to allow Husain to step on Indian soil. Instead, a state official flew to Dubai to hand Husain the award.

This month, members of the Hindu Public Awakening Organization in the western beach resort of Goa sent a memorandum to the state museum directing them to take down his art.

The flamboyant, Ferrari-driving artist, who liked to show up at elite Indian clubs barefoot, divides his time between Dubai and London now. His large body of work runs into several thousand pieces and includes a series on the British colonial Raj, Hindu epics, Mother Teresa, Bollywood cinema and horses. His bold brushstrokes and vibrant colors hark back to his very early days of struggle when he lived on the pavements and painted cinema billboards, known as hoardings, for a living.

Last year, his painting “Battle of Ganga and Jamuna” sold for $1,609,000 at a Christie’s auction.

“It is shameful that the art dealers and galleries that became rich on M.F. Husain for years are so cowardly today,” said Sadanand Menon, an independent cultural critic. “The so-called ‘friends of Husain’ hold tributes occasionally. But the art community, students, writers and the academia are largely silent on this issue.”

Husain recently said in London that he was “dreaming all the time to return to India,” reported the Press Trust of India. But his return looks increasingly difficult.

“M.F. Husain is an absconder under Indian law. If he believes he has not sinned, he should come back and face the anger of the Hindus,” said Surendra Jain, spokesperson of Vishwa Hindu Parishad (World Hindu Council). “He repeatedly insults our faith. We have a right to be angry. He paints his own mother fully clothed, but paints Hindu goddesses naked? It cannot be tolerated in the name of artistic freedom.”

An ongoing exhibition of paintings by Pranava Prakash in New Delhi shows Husain in the nude, with the provocative title “Your Turn.”

A new exhibition by contemporary artist Ravi Gossain opened Thursday as a tribute to his “art guru” Husain. He said Husain may have committed a few mistakes when he named the nudes after Hindu goddesses but his place in the Indian art canon is unquestionable.

“Husain is the engine that drives Indian art globally. You can box him for painting nude goddesses. But his life, his art is too big,” said Gossain. “The hate will not survive, and a few paintings will not bring down our great Hindu culture.”

The post A Major Indian Artist Offends Hindus, and Galleries Turn Fearful first appeared on Indian Art News.