Legendary canvas turns blank, M F Husain is no more

From H S Rao and Prasun Sonwalkar
London, Jun 9 (PTI) Maqbool Fida Husain, who rose from
a Bollywood (Indian film industry) billboard artist to become
India's most celebrated painter worldwide, died here Thursday,
away from home on a self-imposed exile.
India's very own 'Picasso', who earned both fame and
wrath for his paintings, died a Qatari citizen at the Royal
Brompton Hospital here where he was admitted after being in
"indifferent health" for the last one-and-a-half month, family
sources told PTI.
The legendary Husain breathed his last at 2.30 am
local time at the age of 95. He was in hospital for
a week and died from a heart attack due to water retention and
congested lungs.
He will be buried in London tomorrow after his son
Shamshad arrives here from New Delhi, family sources told PTI.
India's biggest grosser as a painter with his works
fetching astronomical sums in auctions in London and New York,
Husain turned away from his homeland in 2006 following a
series of legal cases and death threats over his depiction of
Hindu goddesses in nude.
He accepted Qatari citizenship in 2010 after
surrendering his Indian passport.
Husain's death away from Mumbai, where he started as
a painter of Bollywood posters in the 1920s and later went on
to achieve iconic status, was symbolic of the controversy that
forced him out of India and dogged him to the last.
Though in his last interviews he expressed his desire
to return home to spend the last days of his life, the
celebrated artist could never make it back.Over the years, Husain's career and success closely
mirrored the meteoric rise of contemporary Indian art on the
international stage and he became one of the best known Indian
artists in the world.
Dividing his time between London and Dubai, Husain
would often be seen walking barefoot in Mayfair, striding from
his studio to Shepherd Market with a paintbrush in hand.
Born in Pandharpur in Maharashtra on September 17,
1915, Husain's paintings on goddesses Durga and Saraswati
invited the wrath of Hindu groups who attacked his house in
1998 and vandalised his art works.
In the wake of legal challenges and death threats in
his home country, he had been living abroad since then.
As he had not responded to summons from an Indian
district court in Haridwar, a court in Haridwar ordered his
property be attached and a bailable warrant was also issued
against him by an Indore court.
But, the Indian Supreme Court stayed both the court
orders.
The controversy followed him to London, where an
exhibition of his works had to be withdrawn after the Hindu
Forum of Britain launched a protest campaign.
Steeped in India's syncretic traditions, Husain was
a Bohra and was well versed in Hindu religious texts.
The news of his death prompted an outpouring of grief
in India. Husain had always insisted that his heart remained
in India and that "99 per cent" Indians loved him.
Three of Husain's paintings recently topped a Bonham's
auction, selling for Rs 2.32 crore with an untitled oil work
in which the artist combined his iconic subject matters --
horse and woman -- fetching Rs 1.23 crore alone.
In 1955, he was awarded the Padma Shree. Husain was a
special invitee along with Pablo Picasso at the Sao Paulo
Biennial in 1971. He was awarded the Padma Bhushan in 1973 and
was nominated to the Rajya Sabha (upper house of Indian
Parliament) in 1986. In 1991, he was awarded the Padma
Vibhushan.