An Evening to Celebrate the Life of M.F. HUSAIN - commonly known as MF, who was an eminent painter of Indian origin. He has been widely regarded as the "Picasso of India"

MF Husain info from WiKi

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M._F._Husain

With immense sadness, we grieve the loss of one of India's greatest artists. This amazing, gentle, eccentric, brilliant, articulate artist had no boundries of time or place. A genuine renaissance man, Husain saab experimented with (and mastered) every genre of visual art. We will remember him for his colour, his wistful smile, his brilliance and his phenomenal energy. We have many stories to tell of?? his courage, his forgiveness of the wrongs inflicted on him by his own countrymen, his friendship, anecdotes of our meetings, his unexpected arrivals and departures, his spur of the moment drawings, and most of all his ART. We miss you my friend…..


M.F. Husain - Tribute to a Great Man and Artist

Maqbool Fida Husain (17 September 1915 – 9 June 2011) commonly known as MF, was an eminent painter of Indian origin, although a Qatari national at the time of his death. He has been widely regarded as the "Picasso of India" and has influenced a whole generation of artists in the country.
Husain was associated with Indian modernism in the 1940s. A dashing, highly eccentric figure who dressed in impeccably tailored suits, he went barefoot and brandished an extra-long paintbrush as a slim cane. He never maintained a studio but he spread his canvases out on the floor of whatever hotel room he happened to be staying in and paying for damages when he checked out. He created four museums to showcase his work and had a collection of classic sports cars. Enormously prolific, a gifted self-promoter and hard bargainer, he claimed to have produced some 60,000 paintings, when questioned about such prolificity by Michael Peschardt of the BBC in one of the last interviews he gave on May 27th, 2011, he replied that "All this talk about inspiration and moment is nonsense. Excuse us". He amassed a fortune but maintained a bank balance of zero. He applied the formal lessons of European modernists like Cézanne and Matisse to scenes from national epics like the Mahabharata, Ramayana and to the Hindu pantheon.
His narrative paintings, executed in a modified Cubist style, can be caustic and funny as well as serious and sombre. His themes—usually treated in series—include topics as diverse as Mohandas K. Gandhi, Mother Teresa, the Ramayana, the Mahabharata, the British raj, and motifs of Indian urban and rural life. One of the most celebrated and internationally recognized Indian artists of the 20th century, he also received recognition as a print maker, photographer, and filmmaker.

Pictures from the tribute of his work and then the guests: