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Why so many MF Husain paintings have horses: Flying across horizons, ‘from Karbala to Ashwamedh’

Rarely static, Husain’s horses are powerful creatures that exude immense grace, drawing inspiration from history and religion. His very last series, meant to be an ode to diversity and pluralism in India, also featured horses, but was left incomplete.

5 min readNew DelhiJul 20, 2025 04:01 PM IST

'Nude on Horse' by MF Husain. (Painting photo courtesy DAG/Express archives)

(This is part of a series on Indian masters and the motifs that appear repeatedly in their works. Next: SH Raza’s Bindu)

Maqbool Fida Husain, one of India’s most recognised and revered artists, is known for his bold and striking depictions that drew inspiration from a multitude of sources, from Indian mythology and folk traditions to Western art movements.

The motif most associated with Husain is his horses. These majestic creatures feature across Husain’s oeuvre: he was painting horses in the 1930s, while still making a living as a cinema-hoarding maker in Bombay (now Mumbai), as he was in the late 2000s, while in a self-imposed exile from India.

Diverse influences

Growing up in Indore, where his father was a timekeeper in a textile mill, Husain often shared fond memories of playing with clay horses as a child and riding carousel horses at village fairs.

A friend of his grandfather, who worked as a farrier (someone who takes care of horses’ hooves), gave young Husain close access to the agile animals, allowing the budding artist to study their anatomy in detail. The artist was also inspired by the papier-mâché replicas of Duldul — Prophet Muhammad’s white mule — that were paraded in the streets during Muharram processions.

“My horses, like lightning, cut across many horizons. Seldom their hooves shown. They hop around the spaces. From the battlefield of ‘Karbala’ to Bankura terracotta, from the Chinese Tse pei Hung horse to St. Marco horse, from ornate armoured ‘Duldul’ to challenging white of ‘Ashwamedh’ […] the cavalcade of my horses is multidimensional,” Husain had said in 1987, according to a note on the Christie’s website.

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While the artist’s dynamic lines were guided by the works of German expressionist Franz Marc and Italian sculptor Marino Marini, the fragmented, angular forms reflected a cubist vocabulary.

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‘Untitled (Gandhi and Nehru)’ by MF Husain. (Photo courtesy DAG)

Diverse depictions

Rarely static, Husain’s horses are powerful creatures that exude immense grace.

“The horse, to [Husain], represented masculinity, and he painted them singly, in pairs, or in herds. Strangely, he never painted their hooves. His horses were depicted in motion, capturing their elegance and speed,” Ashish Anand, managing director and CEO of DAG art gallery, told The Indian Express.

Passage of Time, painted in neutral shades in 1954, was one of Husain’s early major canvases featuring the horse as the central figure. He painted several untitled works depicting horses in the 1950s and 1960s, before creating Duldul in 1967 with thick impasto and fractured lines.

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‘Untitled’ by MF Husain. (Photo courtesy DAG)

“Sometimes he also represented them alongside female nudes, as in his wonderful painting of the Three Graces (1990). One of his largest paintings titled Lightning (1975), is entirely made up of galloping horses. Later, his Raj series (1980s) showed maharajas and viceroys playing polo mounted on horses,” Anand said.

In 1991, Husain depicted Zuljanah, Imam Husayn’s loyal horse, celebrated for his valour in the Battle of Karbala. Karbala Horse (Zuljinah) shows the dark equine striding across the River Euphrates.

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Painted in the late 1990s, Seven Horses alluded to the Hindu mythological depiction of Surya, the sun god, whose chariot is pulled by seven horses.

Husain’s very last series, meant to be an ode to diversity and pluralism in India, also featured horses. Commissioned in 2008 by Usha Mittal, the wife of steel baron Lakshmi Mittal, the series remained incomplete due to the artist’s demise in 2011.

Appreciated & critiqued

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Globally recognised as his signature motif, Husain’s horses have drawn both criticism and acclaim over the years. Among others, author Mulk Raj Anand reportedly described them as “bourgeois subject matter”. Some art critics also feel that Husain repeated the motif rather too often, particularly after the 1970s.

For Husain, however, horses remained an inherent part of his artistic vocabulary and symbolism, one he never shied away from, regardless of how critics felt.

“Horses have always been a part of Indian art but it was Husain saab who made them a specific subject all his own. The only other artist who painted horses with as much zeal throughout his career was Sunil Das, but he depicted them realistically while Husain’s work was expressionistic,” Anand said. “Representing horses’ energy and dynamism, Husain’s paintings, often massive, command attention in any room where they are displayed.”

Vandana Kalra

Vandana Kalra is an art critic and Deputy Associate Editor with The Indian Express. She has spent more than two decades chronicling arts, culture and everyday life, with modern and contemporary art at the heart of her practice. With a sustained engagement in the arts and a deep understanding of India’s cultural ecosystem, she is regarded as a distinctive and authoritative voice in contemporary art journalism in India. Vandana Kalra's career has unfolded in step with the shifting contours of India’s cultural landscape, from the rise of the Indian art market to the growing prominence of global biennales and fairs. Closely tracking its ebbs and surges, she reports from studios, galleries, museums and exhibition spaces and has covered major Indian and international art fairs, museum exhibitions and biennales, including the Venice Biennale, Kochi-Muziris Biennale, Documenta, Islamic Arts Biennale. She has also been invited to cover landmark moments in modern Indian art, including SH Raza’s exhibition at the Centre Pompidou in Paris and the opening of the MF Husain Museum in Doha, reflecting her long engagement with the legacies of India’s modern masters. Alongside her writing, she applies a keen editorial sensibility, shaping and editing art and cultural coverage into informed, cohesive narratives. Through incisive features, interviews and critical reviews, she brings clarity to complex artistic conversations, foregrounding questions of process, patronage, craft, identity and cultural memory. The Global Art Circuit: She provides extensive coverage of major events like the Kochi-Muziris Biennale, Serendipity Arts Festival, and high-profile international auctions. Artist Spotlights: She writes in-depth features on modern masters (like M.F. Husain) and contemporary performance artists (like Marina Abramović). Art and Labor: A recurring theme in her writing is how art reflects the lives of the marginalized, including migrants, farmers, and labourers. Recent Notable Articles (Late 2025) Her recent portfolio is dominated by the coverage of the 2025 art season in India: 1. Kochi-Muziris Biennale & Serendipity Arts Festival "At Serendipity Arts Festival, a 'Shark Tank' of sorts for art and crafts startups" (Dec 20, 2025): On how a new incubator is helping artisans pitch products to investors. "Artist Birender Yadav's work gives voice to the migrant self" (Dec 17, 2025): A profile of an artist whose decade-long practice focuses on brick kiln workers. "At Kochi-Muziris Biennale, a farmer’s son from Patiala uses his art to draw attention to Delhi’s polluted air" (Dec 16, 2025). "Kochi Biennale showstopper Marina Abramović, a pioneer in performance art" (Dec 7, 2025): An interview with the world-renowned artist on the power of reinvention. 2. M.F. Husain & Modernism "Inside the new MF Husain Museum in Qatar" (Nov 29, 2025): A three-part series on the opening of Lawh Wa Qalam in Doha, exploring how a 2008 sketch became the architectural core of the museum. "Doha opens Lawh Wa Qalam: Celebrating the modernist's global legacy" (Nov 29, 2025). 3. Art Market & Records "Frida Kahlo sets record for the most expensive work by a female artist" (Nov 21, 2025): On Kahlo's canvas The Dream (The Bed) selling for $54.7 million. "All you need to know about Klimt’s canvas that is now the most expensive modern artwork" (Nov 19, 2025). "What’s special about a $12.1 million gold toilet?" (Nov 19, 2025): A quirky look at a flushable 18-karat gold artwork. 4. Art Education & History "Art as play: How process-driven activities are changing the way children learn art in India" (Nov 23, 2025). "A glimpse of Goa's layered history at Serendipity Arts Festival" (Dec 9, 2025): Exploring historical landmarks as venues for contemporary art. Signature Beats Vandana is known for her investigative approach to the art economy, having recently written about "Who funds the Kochi-Muziris Biennale?" (Dec 11, 2025), detailing the role of "Platinum Benefactors." She also explores the spiritual and geometric aspects of art, as seen in her retrospective on artist Akkitham Narayanan and the history of the Cholamandal Artists' Village (Nov 22, 2025). ... Read More

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