Doha opens Lawh Wa Qalam: MF Husain Museum, celebrating the modernist’s global legacy

The country that had become home to him after nearly four years of leaving India on a self-imposed exile — following vandalism and decades of fighting legal battles over his nude depictions of Hindu gods and goddesses — has now honoured him with a museum. On November 28, the Lawh Wa Qalam: MF Husain Museum opened at Doha’s Education City campus. The striking blue landmark is inspired by a 2008 Husain sketch that has been brought to life by Delhi-based architect Martand Khosla.

Seated in one of its galleries, Qatari artist Yousef Ahmad notes how Husain would have been pleased, given his proclivity to engage others in his art. Describing how the act of painting was a ritual for him, Ahmad recalls watching Husain squeeze tubes of paint directly onto the canvas and using his fingers and long brushes to shape his figures. On their first meeting in the early 1980s in Doha, when Husain had been invited to exhibit in the city, Ahmad says he was at first struck by his bare feet, but later felt that just as Husain had reasoned, the ground beneath did perhaps imbue him with energy that few others possessed.

The journey from Maharashtra’s Pandharpur, where he was born in 1915, to Indore, where his father worked in a textile mill and Husain spent his formative years, and through the many cities he lived and worked as an artist, had been both fulfilling and tumultuous. It was marked by celebrated artworks, high-profile commissions, growing fame as well as controversies and trails. Husain took it all in his stride. Unpredictable, untamed and a man of many contrasts, he was as at ease in the crowded streets of Delhi’s Nizamuddin neighbourhood as the elegant Mayfair Shepherd Market in London to the bustling Souq Waqif of Doha. The approach extended to his meals, from sipping milk tea to dining at the finest restaurants at Emirates Towers in Dubai as well as the city’s unassuming Al Karama district, or savouring south Indian fare at Gulf Garden restaurant in Doha.

Lawh Wa Qalam: MF Husain Museum in Doha (Photo: Qatar Foundation)

Former Indian Ambassador to Qatar, Deepa Gopalan Wadhwa, whose friendship with Husain only developed after he came to her office to relinquish his Indian passport in 2010, recalls how during his subsequent visits to her home Husain would warmly ask for rasam and once requested her to bring back Kerala halwa from one of her trips. “He would often invite me for exhibitions and events, but what he also really enjoyed was having conversations where we would discuss experiences of his life or Indian mythology and history, on which his knowledge was unimaginable. He also wanted to make another film, with Vidya Balan,” says Wadhwa.

While Ahmad remembers his love for Indian spices and tea, he also shares how Husain would enjoy drives near the Doha Corniche in one of his luxury cars. His fleet famously included Mercedes, Cadillac, Ferrari, Bentley, Jaguar, Rolls Royce and the Bugatti Veyron. During one of Dubai-based gallerist RN Singh’s visits to Doha, he recounts Husain driving him to the desert dunes to witness its expanse that he found captivating.

The founding member of the formidable artists’ collective Progressive Artists’ Group, established in Mumbai in 1947, India shaped his roots and anchored his expansive influences, but the Gulf saw him explore new horizons. The Lawh Wa Qalam: MF Husain Museum attempts to record this transition by bringing together artworks from the 1950s to the series based on the Arab civilisation. Completed posthumously, his multimedia installation Seeroo fi al Ardh, is also showcased. Noof Mohammed, curator and project manager at the museum, notes that in Qatar his colour palette gradually shifted from the brighter tones. “You see an evolution in the colour segment, reflective of the environment of Doha,” she says.

Ashish Anand, CEO and Managing Director of DAG gallery, notes how a Husain museum was always within the realm of possibilities. “He was a memorialist and the fact that he created a series of autobiographical works is indicative of how he viewed his own self as representative of something larger and beyond just a mere artist,” states Anand. He adds, “A single artist museum is a rare honour. While I believe India should have enjoyed that privilege, in the Middle East, where a new art hub appears to be emerging and consolidating, the Husain museum will prove to be a catalyst for Indian modern art as well.”

The artist’s last two major commissions, notably, also became tributes to the two civilisations that nurtured him. While in Qatar he was working on canvases inspired by the Arab civilisation, in London in 2008 steel magnate Lakshmi Mittal and his wife Usha had commissioned him a series of paintings titled Indian Civilisation, expressing the richness of Indian culture and history.

Wadhwa recalls how, incidentally, Husain’s last New Year greeting to his friends featured a print of a painting he made of the Sunderkand from the Ramayana. Singh notes, “India never left him wherever he was.”

Vandana Kalra was a guest of The Lawh Wa Qalam: MF Husain Museum in Doha