Indian Court Orders Seizure of “Offensive” Paintings by MF Husain
By EMILY CHEUNG
Portrait of MAQBOOL FIDA HUSAIN. Courtesy the Delhi Art Gallery, New Delhi/Mumbai/New York.
On January 20, a New Delhi court ordered the seizure of two paintings by the late Indian artist Maqbool Fida Husain for allegedly depicting blasphemous content.
A complaint about the paintings was first lodged on December 9 last year by Delhi High Court lawyer Amita Sachdeva, after she attended the exhibition “Husain: The Timeless Modernist” at the Delhi Art Gallery (DAG). The show featured over 100 works by Husain, including the two “offensive” paintings that Sachdeva later denounced on social media for “hurt[ing] religious sentiments.” The works in question feature the Hindu deities Hanuman and Ganesha alongside naked female figures.
After filing a complaint with the police and revisiting the exhibition the next day, Sachdeva reportedly found that the paintings had been removed, with the gallery claiming that they were never on view. She urged the court to investigate the gallery’s CCTV footage, upon which the judge granted police permission to confiscate the two paintings on January 22.
As reported by the BBC, the DAG complied with the investigation but denied any wrongdoing. In a statement, the gallery pointed out that the police had found no “cognizable offense,” and that the exhibition had garnered generally positive reviews from visitors, with Sachdeva being the only person to protest the artworks.
Husain, who was dubbed the “Picasso of India,” passed away in 2011 at the age of 95. Though widely celebrated across the nation for his modernist art, he was no stranger to controversy, often receiving backlash for painting nude Hindu gods and female figures. In 2006, he issued a public apology for painting a naked woman in the shape of India, after which he left the country as a form of self-exile, living in London until his death.
Emily Cheung is an editorial intern at ArtAsiaPacific.
