M.F. Husain was India's best-known modern artist—and, since 2025, its most expensive, after one of his works sold at auction for $13.8m, a record for an Indian painter. He was born in Pandharpur, was Muslim and had Yemeni ancestry. He died in 2011 aged 95. (20250927, 20251213)
Husain belongs to a group of painters known as India's "modern masters", who studied with and were influenced by European Modernist artists. Other members include F.N. Souza and S.H. Raza. Works by Souza that sold for £3,000 and £1,200 in 2000 and 2002 have since appreciated to estimates between £800,000 and £1.5m.
Nine Indian artists, including Husain, are designated "national treasures" under the Antiquities and Art Treasures Act of 1972, which heavily restricts the export of their work as well as any object more than 100 years old.
Husain was one of India's first "celebrity artists", with a rags-to-riches story that involved sleeping on Mumbai's pavements and painting movie posters. His output was prodigious: some 40,000 works over his lifetime, from quick sketches to enormous multi-panel paintings. In the popular Indian imagination he is associated with depictions of horses, daily life and Hindu goddesses, but his range was far greater. He also made sculptures and films, including a short that won the top prize at the Berlin Film Festival.
Husain fell foul of Hindu nationalists, who claimed offence at his frequent depiction of Hindu goddesses in the nude. By the mid-2000s the harassment had become intolerable: death threats, vandalism of his artwork, an attack on his home by Hindutva militants and an estimated 900 legal cases registered against him. He left India in 2006 and never returned, living between Dubai, Doha and London. In 2010 he was offered Qatari citizenship, which he accepted. Because India does not allow dual citizenship, he renounced the nationality of his birth. He is sometimes described as "an Indian-origin Qatari painter".
Lawh wa Qalam (The Canvas and the Pen), a museum in Doha dedicated to Husain, opened in late 2025. It is the first museum outside India dedicated to a single Indian artist. The museum was commissioned by Sheikha Moza bint Nasser, the mother of Qatar's reigning emir, in her role as chair of the Qatar Foundation. It contains around 140 paintings, including works from his last commission: 99 paintings on the theme of Arab civilisation, of which he completed about 35 before his death.
Seek simplicity -- and distrust it.