Maqbool Fida Husain (17 September 1915 – 9 June 2011) popularly known as MF, was a prominent Indian painter. According to Forbes magazine, he has been called the "Picasso of India".

Husain was associated with Indian modernism in the 1940s. After a long career, in 1996, when Husain was 81 years old, controversy arose over paintings originally created in the 1970s which were interpreted as anti-Hindu. After legal cases and death threats in his home country, he was on a self imposed exile from 2006. In January, 2010, he was offered the citizenship of Qatar, which he accepted. He died in London the following year.

He is one of the most famous artists of India, both at the national as well as the international level. So huge is the popularity of his paintings, that Maqbool Fida Hussein was once called as the 'Picasso of India' by the Forbes magazine. In the following lines, we have thrown some more light on the biography and life history of the great artist:

M.F. Hussain lost his mother when he was only one and a half years old. Some time later, his father remarried and moved to the Indore city, where Maqbool completed his schooling. He moved to Bombay (now Mumbai) in 1935 and took admission into Sir J. J. School of Art. MF Hussain started his painting career as a painter of cinema hoardings. It was only in the 1940s that his work started getting some recognition. In the year 1947, he joined the Progressive Artist's Group, which was founded by Francis Newton Souza.

Slowly and gradually, Hussain climbed the ladder of success to become one of the highest paid painters of India. Recently, a single canvas of MF Hussain fetched 2 million dollars at a Christie's auction. Some time back, Hussain started directing and producing movies also. His movies include Gaja Gamini (with Madhuri Dixit) and Meenaxi: A Tale of Three Cities (with Tabu). His film 'Through the Eyes of a Painter' was shown at the Berlin Film Festival and won a Golden Bear also. The autobiography of M.F. Hussain is being made into a movie, which has been tentatively titled as 'The Making of the Painter'.

Recognition

The first solo exhibition of M.F. Hussein was held at Zurich in the year 1952. Over the next few years, his paintings were widely appreciated in Europe and USA. In 1966, the Government of India awarded him the prestigious Padma Shree. He has also been awarded the Padma Bhushan. The Government of India also appointed Maqbool Fida Hussein to a term in the Rajya Sabha, in recognition of his contribution to art.

We were paid barely four or six annas per square foot. That is, for a 6x10 feet canvas, we earned a few rupees. And apart from the New Theatre distributor, the others did not pay us at all. As soon as I earned a little bit I used to take off for Surat, Baroda and Ahmedabad to paint landscapes.

Given this bad pay, Husain tried other jobs as well. One of the best paying was a toy factory, where he designed and built fretwork toys.

In the 1947 annual exhibition of the Bombay Art Society, his painting Sunhera Sansaar was shown. This was his first exhibition. After the Partition later that year, Husain decided to stay in India. Soon the Progressive Artists' Group was formed. Through it, Husain was exposed to, and strongly influenced by, the work of Emil Nolde and Oskar Kokoschka. From 1948 to 1950 a series of exhibitions all over India brought Husain's work to the notice of the public.

The 1950s and '60s

In 1951 Husain travelled to China. In the following year he had his first solo exhibition in Zurich, and over the next few years his work was widely seen in Europe and the USA.

In 1966 Husain was awarded the Padmashree by the Government of India. In the following year he made his first film, Through the Eyes of a Painter. It was shown at the Berlin Festival and won a Golden Bear.

The 1970s

Some of his best known works are called the Sufi paintings, and were first exhibited at the Pundole Gallery in 1978.

The 1980s

During these years M.F. Husain slowly grew into a public figure, often embroiled in controversies. His Shwetambari exhibition at the Jehangir Art Gallery consisted of two halls shrouded in white cloth, whorls of which also shared the floor with torn newspapers. Later, he gave a public performance at the Tata Center in Calcutta. For several days a crowd watched as he painted pictures of six goddesses. On the last day of the exhibition he destroyed his paintings by overpainting with white.

Husain had become a photogenic icon, and the newspapers loved him. The stuffy Calcutta Club was pilloried when it refused admission to a barefoot Husain on the grounds that he violated their dress code. He was nominated to the upper house of the Indian Parliament, the Rajya Sabha in 1987; and during his six year term he produced the Sansad Portfolio.

The 1990s

In the early '90s, several collections of his paintings were made accessible to the public in exhibitions of permanent galleries. The most interesting of these is the Husain-Doshi Gufa in Ahmadabad, a collaboration between the painter and an architect in the construction of a gallery.

During this period, M.F. Husain began to develop an interest on Madhuri Dixit, a leading movie actress of India.