In 2010, when MF Husain was conferred Qatar nationality, the artist acknowledged it through a sketch that featured his trademark horse alongside words that expressed how he was “honoured”. Seven years after the modernist’s demise in 2011, the country is now celebrating his art through an exhibition that features his works spanning six decades. Taking place at the Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art in Qatar, curator Ranjit Hoskote describes the show titled “MF Husain: Horses Of The Sun” as “an introspective rather than a retrospective”.
“The question before me was how to organise both the material and the kaleidoscopic life of the artist into something that would be legible to the diverse audience in Doha … The main thematic fulcrum for me was Husain’s understanding of himself as someone who was profoundly rooted in India but also was a global nomad. He travelled everywhere freely, and yet at the end he became an exile, having to leave his homeland against his will. It was a very tragic turn of events,” says Mumbai-based Hoskote.
