ThePrint ·
MF Husain wanted to be ‘free’ when India was. His art took him from cinema hoardings to exile
By the 1990s, MF Husain's work had begun to draw protests and threats in India. Nude representations of Hindu deities became the subject of cases against him. He left India in 2006.
Mumbai: On 15 August, 1947, M F Husain was on the streets of Bombay watching the Independence celebrations. He was still earning his living at a nursery furniture and wooden-toy shop. Years later, he remembered how strongly the night had affected him.
“The whole celebration triggered my imagination. I decided I should also become free and I should enter the art world,” he had said.
Born in Pandharpur and raised largely in Indore, Husain drew, practised calligraphy and cycled into the countryside to paint landscapes. On one such outing, he met artist NS Bendre, who encouraged him to study art. Husain attended evening classes at the Indore School of Art and later enrolled at the Sir J J School of Art in Bombay. After his father lost his job, he could no longer afford to continue.
