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“My concern in film, as in paintings, is to relate to a specific Indianness.” — M F HUSAIN

The present lot is a sketchbook from 1957 that Husain filled with drawings he made while in Prague and Uncín in Czechoslovakia (present-day Czech Republic). Having achieved international recognition at the 1954 Venice Biennale, Husain travelled extensively between 1956 and 1961 and exhibited his work across Zurich, Prague, Frankfurt, and... “My concern in film, as in paintings, is to relate to a specific Indianness.” — M F HUSAIN

The present lot is a sketchbook from 1957 that Husain filled with drawings he made while in Prague and Uncín in Czechoslovakia (present-day Czech Republic). Having achieved international recognition at the 1954 Venice Biennale, Husain travelled extensively between 1956 and 1961 and exhibited his work across Zurich, Prague, Frankfurt, and Rome. He first visited Prague in 1956 and was commissioned by Air India to paint a mural there in 1957.

The sketches offer a window into Husain’s distinctive artistic style and feature compositional elements that recur in many of his paintings, including key works from the 1950s and 1960s. Notably, one of the pages contains a preparatory study for Between the Spider and the Lamp, a significant work from 1956. Art historian Yashodhara Dalmia writes, “It is interesting to note that in his preparatory sketches for this painting, Husain drew a child standing between the women looking out of the frame, both as a voyeur and as a participant. In the final painting, however, the child is replaced by a band of red, creating space between the figures.” (Yashodhara Dalmia, “A Metaphor for Modernity - Maqbool Fida Husain”, The Making of Modern Indian Art, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2001, p. 105) Remarking on the power of his linework, she adds, “Above all else, it was the line that was Husain’s strongest element and he used it with a bounding energy in his work. The deft strokes that came from an early acquaintance with calligraphy now encased the figure in simple, economic points of intersection. He stated that ‘Line is a virile force with keen latent mobility, which in spite of being imperceptible in nature, is constantly striving to assert itself.’” (Dalmia, p. 109)

Even pared down to their bare structure, Husain’s female figures exhibit the lyricism of classical Indian sculpture, which greatly informed his own modernist vision. One can see his tendency to present women either as monumental figures or arranged in intimate groupings. The drawings also reflect his fondness for incorporating symbolic imagery, such as lamps, snakes, and letters, into his work (see lot 60). As critic Geeta Kapur explains, “...although Husain is not consistent in his use of symbols, he is ingenious and he establishes such a sense of intimacy with familiar objects that a meaning often appears out of the very eccentricity of their relationship.” (Geeta Kapur, “Maqbool Fida Husain: Folklore and Fiesta”, Contemporary Indian Artists, New Delhi: Vikas Publishing House Pvt Ltd, 1978, p. 128)

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