JOIN USDelhi-based artist Ravi Gossain has created a new series of paintings which captures the flamboyant Husain in various moods ranging from the playful to the morose.
"Husain is a very spirited artist. At the age of 93 he drives a Ferrari to go to the local chaiwallah. He has a sense of the unique," says Gossain.
Why Husain and why now? "I picked up a painting by Husain and another work by English master Henry Moore. In my painting I have juxtaposed them Sometimes it takes a third person to bring the two great artists together," says Gossain.
One of the leading members of the Progressive Arts Movement Maqbool Fida Husain, a self-taught artist had over decades evolved a unique language of painting. Organisers of the recently held India Art Summit in the national capital had refrained from exhibiting the master citing security reasons.
"We can't deny the fact that Husain has been the engine which is driving the Indian art market. He is a 20,000 crore industry by himself and has brought the art from the country on an international platform," says 59-year-old Gossain.
The prolific genius reportedly takes just a little more than a couple of hours to finish a painting. "He completes within three hours a billion dollar painting. He wants to finish what he has conceptualised in a couple of hours. He is very spontaneous and likes to finish his women in 10 strokes and has no patience to dress them up," says Gossain.
Also Gossain says the exiled painter should not have bothered to title his works. "Husain should have just left his works untitled. That is the beauty of artworks, they should be free to be interpreted by the viewer."
With his oil and acrylic canvasses, some as large as 7ft x 16 ft Gossain's exhibition is titled 'Husain Par Fida.' Executed in blazing shades of red, yellow, blue and green is the work titled Husain and Henry Moore shows a trendy Husain sporting sunglasses and stepping off a red Ferrari.
Says Gossain, "Husain has all the latest models of Ferrari, Cadillac and Maserati which he feels are his muse. He calls them art installations as he bought them because as he could not afford a Henry Moore.”
Gosaain, 59, says he does not have any plans to sell. "These paintings are not for ordinary sale. Of course my other works like the butterflies and the sunflowers are open for sale but I find it difficult to part with my works on Husain. Today nobody concentrates on the process of art but everybody talks about problems of selling art."
Son of Madan Mohan Gossain, a painter from the Lahore School of Art who had migrated to Shimla and became part of the Shimla group of artists, Ravi Gossain who did his Chemical Engineering from Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur took to professional painting only very recently.
Gossain says he has till now not attempted to get in touch with M F Husain, whom he first saw at a function at IIT where he was the Arts Secretary.
"Husain is a very spirited painter and envy of almost all artists. His appearance is also very striking. I cannot remember Michalangelo's face but Hussain is somebody whom nobody can forget easily," says the Delhi-based painter. he is the envy of every artist.