Friday, June 10, 2011

What They Said: M.F Husain’s Death

Maqbool Fida Husain, the most renowned and controversial artist to come out of India, died in London on Thursday. The Padma Shri award winner, whose work was often criticized in India, had been residing overseas for several years in self-imposed exile. Indian newspapers paid their tribute to the modernist painter on Friday by commemorating the artist's extraordinary life and by reflecting on the intolerance of the country towards his art. Here is a selection of commentary on Mr. Husain from Indian newspapers.

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M.F Husain died at a hospital in London Thursday. Above, the artist in front of one of his paintings in London.

The Indian Express, in an editorial, referred to M.F Husain as India's “most colorful modernist” and observed that the artist was not a reclusive sort, but a very public figure.

“It was not just the images he created on canvases, but the image that he constructed of himself — the barefoot painter who walked down Bombay's streets, who drew on paper napkins and cafeteria walls in return for a coffee or a biryani, the performance artist who painted canvases in minutes before a gathering, gawping crowd,” said the paper. “Sometimes he towered so much over his canvases that he gained criticism for being more gimmicky than genius. But he continually engaged with public spaces and personalities and sporadically with that most engaging medium of the 20th century — the cinema.”

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