Osian's Auction Catalogue Indian Modern Fine Arts | June 2017

29 M.F. Husain (1915 – 2011) Village Scene Oil on canvas, c.1959-60 Signed in Devanagari ‘Husain’ l.l. 30.0 x 59.8 in (76.3 x 152.0 cm) Provenance Acquired by Shimla-based Collector directly from the Artist. INR 6,000,000 – 9,000,000 USD 93,750 – 140,625 Full double-spread image on pp.72-73 Husain’s metaphor is rich and of great expressiveness. It brings a wide sweep to his way of looking at things, to his many approaches to reality. His symbols and represented objects are often startling in juxtaposition because they are drawn from such far reaches of artistic memory. Dark, intuitive, sometimes traditional symbols are cast within a contemporary design and given meanings that seem valid for this and every other time. And if the innocent in art is also the original, as indeed it is, then innocence is the other noteworthy feature of Husain’s work…Husain wields a quick, nervous line of great sensitiveness and energy. It is a versatile line, capable of both power and poetry. It divides his forms in firm definition, broods among his grouped figures. It pounds across the canvas in his horses, lurks in women’s faces in tender almost tentative hint, or threads sharply across his compositions like a scalpel, 30 M.F. Husain (1915 – 2011) Elephant in Town Oil on canvas, 1961 S/d in Devanagari ‘Husain 61’ t.l. 51.6 x 31.9 in (131.0 x 81.0 cm) Provenance Acquired by Shimla based Collector directly from the Artist. INR 6,000,000 – 9,000,000 USD 93,750 – 140,625 Lot 29 separating one figure, one face, from the other in subtly differentiated tones of colour, as though he sculpted his figures from paint. But impeccable draughtsman that he is, Husain is a greater painter and his line is never conceived apart from form and colour, from his exacting demands of spatial organization. He has spent years exploring the interaction of line and colour in his paintings. Sometimes he has allowed his line greater definition, allowed it to build and divide with power; at others he has sought a more muted line, working inwards from the edges of the canvas, towards a face or a form, and stopping with the line only a suggestion. The result of these years has been a realization that line moves faster than colour, that the eye catches the colour quicker but also retains it longer than the line. Shiv S. Kapur rpt. in Husain. New Delhi: LKA 1961; pi-v. Two Important M.F. Husain paintings from the 1959-61 Period 74 | Osian’s–Connoisseurs of Art