Key points
- Exile followed Hindu nationalist backlash
- Lawh Wa Qalam inaugurated in Doha
- Showcases Husain’s late-career Doha works
DOHA: Qatar has inaugurated a new museum in Doha dedicated to the life and work of acclaimed Indian modern artist Maqbool Fida Husain, offering a permanent home to his final major projects nearly two decades after he left India amid threats and legal cases.
Husain, often dubbed “India’s Picasso”, rose from painting Bollywood billboards in Bombay to co-founding the Bombay Progressive Artists’ Group in 1947.
But from the 1990s he faced a sustained campaign by Hindu nationalist groups, leading to lawsuits, vandalised exhibitions and the ransacking of his Mumbai home. Though India’s Supreme Court later quashed cases against him, Husain did not return, according to Al Jazeera.
Named Lawh Wa Qalam (“the board and the pen”), the museum opened last month in Education City and showcases Husain’s late-career works commissioned by Sheikha Moza bint Nasser, chair of Qatar Foundation. Qatar granted Husain citizenship in 2010, a year before he died in London in 2011.
Film and poetry
The 290-square-metre museum features at least 35 paintings from Husain’s Arab Civilisation series, alongside other works including photography, film and poetry. Among the highlights are The Battle of Badr, which blends Arabic calligraphy with Husain’s bold modernist style, and Arab Astronomy, which pays tribute to Arab scientific scholarship.
The museum also incorporates Seeroo fi al ardh (“travel through the earth”), a multimedia installation chronicling human civilisation through the Arab world.
Curator Noof Mohammed said the museum focuses on presenting Husain’s Doha-produced works together, calling them among the most ambitious of his career. The collection includes personal items such as Indian passport books he surrendered in 2010.
Qatar Foundation officials said the museum will serve students, researchers and art lovers, adding to Education City’s growing public art ecosystem.
