M.F.Hussain Dead, India's best known artist passes away

India’s most famous painter M.F. Hussain is dead. He died at a hospital in London, due to heart attack. The ‘Picasso of India’ as he was termed by Bollywood, is no more.

M.F.Hussain’s paintings were not only famous, they also invited a fair share of controversies. Though he was credited to put India on the world map, as far as painting and artwork was concerned, he was also criticized by certain sects for showing Indian Hindu female deities in a compromising form. There were death threats to his life as a result of which, he shifted base overseas. Last heard, he had taken citizenship of Qatar, though he had admitted that he loved his country very much and wanted to be in India.

M.F Hussain who became famous as a painter in the late 1940s, had joined the Progressive Artists’ Group, a group of artists who wanted to break free from the conventional view of Bengal School of Art and become an avant-garde in India. He had his first solo art exbitition in India, after which there was no looking back. He became famous in Europe and US. In the year 1955, M.F.Hussain won the Padmashree awards from the government of India.

M.F. Hussain was known to be attached to Bollywood. He was fascinated by Madhuri Dixit in Hum Aapke Hain Koun and painted her. He also directed a movie that starred her in a movie called Gajagamini. However, he was none too happy with the present state of Bollywood and its actors and gave his views in an outspoken manner. He had expressed his desire to pain Amrita Rao, whom he thought symbolized the Indian look well. Lately, he was enchanted by Vidya Balan and had expressed his wish to paint her. God bless his soul!

Check out M.F. Hussain's criticism of Bollywood.