One of the most celebrated modern painters of India, the legacy of M. F. Husain is both controversial and crucial to the country’s art history as he formed an influential arc through his works inspired by several Indian elements and reforms.As the works continue to remind us of his endless mastery and we follow the last dominated auction of Husain in March, fetching $13.8 million, his works are going to receive the earnest attention of the art market once again as 25 rare works by the artist go on a Pundole’s auction, titled MF Husain: An Artist’s Vision of the XX Century, on June 12.
In 2004, Husain embarked on a journey to paint 100 canvases, which he regarded by an acronym OPCE, meaning Our Planet Called Earth. The artist’s wish was to “document the century that I have lived through,” and while he painted only 25 from the 100 canvases he proposed, the largeness of the endeavor is well depicted through them, making these 25 frames immensely crucial.
While he only painted 25 from this series, the paintings depict the largeness and he initially started working on two canvases, stretched on two large walls of the gallery, and soon transitioned his idea of making a series to depict the century he has lived. Recalling the days of the then 89-year-old artist, Dadiba Pundole says,
“Making the customary disappearances, which at times lasted several days. Finally sensing my anxiety, he decided to continue the project in Dubai in a vacant apartment situated in Deira that a friend had offered him. His head now filled with several images, he decided to paint one hundred paintings under the umbrella of An Artist’s Vision of the XX Century.”
Previously, when I mentioned controversial and crucial, I torched towards his days when the artist, alongside many other prominent painters of his time, founded Progressive Artists Group to defy the prevailing norms of Western StyleAcademic Realism and adapt to the pre-colonial miniaturist ateliers. Husain did many such things in his, alongside his companions, successful attempt to revive the Indianness in art. However, even after that, his bold compositions led him to trial, and before that, the mob and the media heckled him to leave his own country and take Qatari citizenship, later taking his last breath in London in 2011. The days of M. F. Husain witnessed two world wars, the collapse of the Ottoman and Russian empires, the rise of Kemalist and Bolshevik forces, the partition of British-ruled India into states of India and Pakistan, and later the formation of Bangladesh, the Korean war, the formation of Israel and the expulsion of the Palestinians. At the same time, he also saw the Cold War and many such instances that directed his work. To say Husain was different is not at all wrong, and in the words of Pundole’s,
“The OPCE series is animated by this spirit of heroic humanism. In these paintings, Husain invokes World War I and World War II, extols the triumphs of aviation, presents nature as the counterpart to settlement, sings a paean to the race for space, delights in the cinema, and dwells on many memorable leitmotifs of the 20th century, arguably the most globalised and densely event-packed phase in our planet’s recorded history.”
Behind this fascinating and biographical work is a deal that was followed by a court case. In 2004, Husain sold his 25 works from the OPCE series to Swarup Srivastava, a Mumbai-based art collector and chairman of the Swarup Group of Industries. This marked the first transaction of the deal which was to acquire 100 works from Husain for Rs 100 crore. However, two years later, in 2006, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) probed Srivastava and other members of the Swarup Group, for taking a Rs 235-crore loan from the National Agricultural Co-operative Marketing Federation (NAFED), claiming to import iron ore but allegedly diverting about Rs 150 crore into real estate and personal expenses.
As the legal proceedings continued, a tribunal in December 2008 allowed NAFED to take control of all the movable and immovable assets of Swarup Group worth Rs 104.5 Crore – this included the works of M. F. Husain. Following these actions, Swarup Group paid a part of the loan, but the unpaid debt alongside its interest now stands at Rs 500 Crore.
Fast-forward to the present case scenario, the High Court heard and considered the arbitrator and asked Pundole’s to create a valuation report of these paintings. As per the case proceedings on May 2, 2024, Dadiba Pundole valued the works for Rs 25 Crore. Though this is an amount that Swarup Group is willing to pay (May 17), NAFED suggested to the court that the works would fetch the highest pricing when publicly auctioned, the High Court ruled out Swarup Group directly repurchasing these works without an auction, and that they could participate in the auction.
In addition to the auction, the works that were locked away in a bank’s vault will be exhibited as a part of the preview at Hamilton House from June 8 to 11.
Featured Image: OPCE 25, OPCE 3, OPCE 23 by MAQBOOL FIDA HUSAIN (1913-2011); Pundole’s.
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