Important Notice

In 1937, M F Husain left his home in Indore for Bombay with no more than a few rupees to his name and a firm resolve to make his mark as an artist. He initially supported himself by painting cinema hoardings, and after his wedding in 1941, joined Fantasy-a family-run business in South Bombay that made nursery furniture-as head of design. Many of his illustrations, which were used as templates for designs for the studio’s furniture, initially... In 1937, M F Husain left his home in Indore for Bombay with no more than a few rupees to his name and a firm resolve to make his mark as an artist. He initially supported himself by painting cinema hoardings, and after his wedding in 1941, joined Fantasy-a family-run business in South Bombay that made nursery furniture-as head of design. Many of his illustrations, which were used as templates for designs for the studio’s furniture, initially drew from Western popular culture such as Disney films, nursery rhyme characters, and Hummel figurines. However, they seemed far-removed from Husain’s own upbringing in semi-urban India, and he soon introduced a new set of imagery inspired by Indian villages and folklore. This sense of rootedness to Indian myths and visual culture would remain a cornerstone of his art even as he rose to international prominence for his distinctive modernist language in the decades that followed.

Husain resigned from Fantasy in 1949 to pursue art full-time, but its influence could still be seen in the wooden toys that he produced in the ensuing years. Mortimer Chatterjee explains, “In terms of material form, nowhere can the legacy of Fantasy be more clearly understood than in the artist’s production of wooden toys from the 1950s onwards. These objects, made with the help of skilled labour, deftly functioned at the intersection of art and design, providing access to those who wanted to possess a Husain, but could not afford his paintings (much in the spirit of his affordable prints). These wooden toys-in the form of carts, musicians, farmers, and bullocks-all quote directly from the wooden cutouts that Husain developed during his years at Fantasy.” (Mortimer Chatterjee, “World-Making: Husain at Play, in the Village”, Fantasy: M F Husain - Nursery Design and an Emerging Indian Aesthetic, Mumbai: Minal and Dinesh Vazirani, 2023, p. 141)

“All forms of art are born from one’s roots.” - M F HUSAIN

The horse in the present lot takes on a similar toy-like quality, affirming Ram Chatterjee’s view that in Husain’s hands these seemingly simple objects were transformed into lyrical works of fine art. (Ram Chatterjee, Husain’s Toys, Bombay: D B Rajpally, 1960, p. 3.) The animal, which became synonymous with the artist’s oeuvre, draws its form here from Indian folk-art traditions, which he believed could be adapted to suit a new international modernism. The inspiration for Husain’s horses came from various sources, including the classical and folk tradition of the Panchatantra and Jataka Tales, Indian sculpture, the horses of the Konark Sun Temple and the Bankura horse of West Bengal. But it was the image of the Duldul, the rigid white steed of the Prophet Muhammed’s son Imam Hussain carried out during Muharram processions, which remained his most powerful reference.

An intuitive colourist, Husain often derived his palette from Basholi and Mewar miniature paintings, which he first encountered in 1948 when he and fellow Progressive Artists’ Group member F N Souza visited an exhibition of classical Indian art at Rashtrapati Bhavan in New Delhi. As critic Geeta Kapur writes, “Husain, more than any other artist, had the vital impulse to spread his sensibilities far and wide, across the vast stretches of the Indian countryside and bring in a kaleidoscopic imagery… He looked at Basohli miniatures which have (along with Malwa and Mewar miniatures) pronounced folk and primitive features. Husain loved the colour layout of these schools: the hot, bright colours, especially red and yellow (set off in the case of Malwa by blue-grey, chocolate-brown, and dull green), and their style of applying it flat over large areas which cuts short any naturalistic illusions contained in the themes as such.” (Geeta Kapur, “Maqbool Fida Husain: Folklore and Fiesta”, Contemporary Indian Artists, New Delhi: Vikas Publishing House Pvt Ltd, 1978, pp. 125, 139)

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