M F Hussain and Art as Inspiration

If a client is an art collector, or has a treasured piece, interior designers will often use that image as the main reference source or influence for a design. We’ve had several clients bring in pieces by M F Husain and they make fantastic inspiration. His free flowing lines, contemporary style and vibrant tones gives us lots to work with and often encourages clients to be a bit more bold and fearless when it comes to colour.

A colourful M F Husain piece provides the focual point of an elegant Mayfair sitting room

Religious rituals often feature

M F Husain is often referred to as the ‘Picasso of India’. He is the best know and most internationally recognised Indian painter of the 20th Century. Christies and Sotheby’s class him as a Modern Master and his work frequently sells in excess of £1m. His paintings usually depict religious themes mixed with history and incidents from the artist’s own life.

Husain is mostly associated with Indian modernism around the 1940s/50s. He was a founding member of the Progressive Artist’s Group in Bombay. Husain was greatly inspired by the “new” India after The Partition of 1947. His painting are often narrative and take the form of triptychs, and are largely in what is considered a modified Cubist style. The tone of his work is largely sombre, but can also be caustic, witty and satirical.  His themes, often approached in series. He often referenced horses in his work, as metaphors for transport and grandeur. Other frequently referenced subjects include: Gandhi, Mother Teresa, the Ramayana, the Mahabharata, the British raj, and motifs of Indian urban and rural life.

A recent project of ours

His use of religious and symbolic iconography have made him a controversial artist, and saw him spend the last decade of his life in exile. Although he was awarded such national honours as the Padma Bhushan (1973) and the Padma Vibhushan (1991), Husain induced criticims for his often irreverent treatment of sensitive subject matter, including Hindu goddesses painted as nudes.

Works by M F Husain

Horses were a common subject