A Framed Painter: Maqbool Fida Husain

NEWSWEEK

By Salil Tripathi

"Last Supper" by Hussain

INDIA - Maqbool Fida Husain, who died on June 8, was India’s most prominent painter—but in the last year of his life, he had become a national of Qatar, and he died in London, far from the city he loved, Mumbai. Husain was born a Muslim, and Hindu activists saw an opportunity to lead a sustained campaign against him. He was born in pre-independence India around 1915 and lived there until the 1990s, when Hindu nationalists launched a vicious campaign against him. They were upset after a magazine found some of his old paintings and sketches, some dating back to the 1970s, which showed Hindu deities in the nude. [link]