Global Exhibitions
2024

Venice Biennale, Kiran Nadar Museum of Art, Venice, Italy

The Rooted Nomad - MF Husain

2022

DAG Modern, Kala Ghoda, Mumbai, India

M.F. Husain: Master Maqbool

Emami Art, Kolkata

Essential Forms: An Exhibition Of MF Husain’s Cut-Outs

2019

Vadehra Art Gallery, New Delhi, India

MF Husain: Lines of Thought

Arab Museum of Modern Art, Doha, Qatar

M. F. Husain: Horses Of The Sun

Asia Society and Museum, New York, USA

M.F. Husain: Art and the Nation

2018

Aicon Gallery, New York, USA

M. F. Husain: Restless Traveler

2017

The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, USA

India Modern: The Paintings of M. F. Husain

2014

V&A South Kensington, London, UK

M.F. Husain: Master of Modern Indian Painting

2011

HoMA, Honolulu Museum of Art, Honolulu, Hawaii, USA

In Memoriam: Maqbool Fida Husain

2010

Museum of Islamic Art (MIA), Qatar Foundation and as part of 2010 Arab Capital of Culture, Qatar, UAE

M F Husain 2010 – The World is my Canvas

Grosvenor Gallery, London, UK

The Progressives & Associates

The Arts Trust, Mumbai, Maharashtra

Master Class

2009

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA

Bharat Ratna! Jewels of Modern Indian Art

Aicon Gallery, New York , NY

In Search of the Vernacular

Gallerie Mirchandani + Steinreucke, Mumbai, Maharashtra

Long Gone & Living Now

Grosvenor Gallery, London, UK

Progressive to Altermodern: 62 Years of Indian Modern Art

Aicon Gallery, London, UK

Signs Taken for Wonders: Recent Art from India and Pakistan

2008

Delhi Art Gallery, New Delhi

Frame Figure Field: 20th Century Modern and Contemporary Indian Art

Herwitz Collection of Contemporary Indian Art, Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, MA

Epic India: Paintings by M. F. Husain

2006

Asia House Gallery, London, UK

Early Masterpieces 1950-70’s

2005

Collector’s Paradise Gallery, Mumbai, Maharashtra

Exhibition of Prints

2004

Lakshana Museum of Fine Arts, Chennai, Tamil Nadu

Husain (An Exhibition of Graphic Prints in Honor of M S Subbalakshmi)

Pictures and Frames, Mumbai, Maharashtra

Husain: Graphic 2004

2003

Vadehra Art Gallery, New Delhi

88 Husains in Oils

Pundole Art Gallery, Mumbai, Maharashtra

Husain Hieroglyph

Pundole Art Gallery, Mumbai, Maharashtra

M F Husain in Oils

Pundole Art Gallery, Mumbai, Maharashtra

Thief of Baghdad

2002

Sarjan Art Gallery, Baroda, Gujarat

Paintings and Serigraphs by Husain

Tao Art Gallery, Mumbai, Maharashtra

Madhuri as Saratchandra’s Chandramukhi: The Eternal Enchantress of Devdas

2000

New Delhi

Paintings, Murals and Drawings, Husain Ki Sarai Collection

1998

The Window, Mumbai, Maharashtra

Maqbool Fida Husain: The Beacon of Energy

Centre for International Modern Art (CIMA), Kolkata

Husain Now

1996

Jehangir Art Gallery, Mumbai, Maharashtra

Exhibition of Water Colors and Object Based Works

1995

Art Today, New Delhi

Maqbool Fida Husain

Surya Gallery, Hyderabad

14 Serigraphs on Madhuri Dixit

Pundole Art Gallery, Mumbai, Maharashtra

A Visual Script of Untitled Film on Madhuri

1994

Vadehra Art Gallery, New Delhi

Tapestry Show

Pundole Art Gallery, Mumbai

Oils on Canvas, 31st Anniversary Exhibition

1993

National Gallery of Modern Art (NGMA), New Delhi

History Cut Across Me Without Me, organized by Vadehra Art Gallery

National Gallery of Modern Art (NGMA), New Delhi

Civilization, Violence and Pather Panchali

1992

Tata Centre, Kolkata

Six Days of Live Painting

1991

Vadehra Art Gallery, New Delhi

Husain

Installation at Jehangir Art Gallery, Mumbai

Shwetambari

Centre for Contemporary art (CCA), New Delhi

Front Page

1990

Installations, New Delhi

Theatre of the Absurd

1989

Vadehra Art Gallery, New Delhi

Calcutta 300

1988

Hunter Museum of art, Tennessee, USA

Husain

1986

Sista’s Art Gallery, Bangalore

Images of the Raj

1983

Pundole Art Gallery, Mumbai

Story of a Brush

1982

Pundole Art Gallery, Mumbai

Culture of the Streets

1981

Art Heritage, New Delhi

Culture of the Streets

Galerie Jourdan, Montreal, Canada

Les Otages – Mere Theresa

1980

Calcutta Art Gallery, Kolkata

Mother and Child: A Tribute to Mother Teres

1979

The Hilton, Kuala Lumpur

Husain in Malaysia

1978

Centaur Hotel, Mumbai

Ragmala Paintings

Pundole Art Gallery, Mumbai

Sufi Paintings

Art Heritage, New Delhi

Portrait of an Umbrella

Lalit Kala Akademi, New Delhi

Retrospective

1975

Sarla Art Centre, Chennai

Maqbool Fida Husain

1974

Commonwealth Art Centre, London, UK

Moscow Museum of Oriental Art, Moscow, Russia

Worcester Art Museum, USA

Paintings by Husain

1973

Birla Academy of art and Culture, Kolkata

Retrospective

Espace Cardin, Paris

1972

Pundole Art Gallery, Mumbai

Paintings 1971

1971

Ashoka Hotel, New Delhi

1969

Jehangir Art Gallery, Mumbai

21 Years of Painting

1950

Bombay Art Society Hall, Mumbai, Maharshtra

life-size paintings themed around “Man” and “1947”, with the context of fragmentation of values, history, culture and society

Through the Eyes of a Painter

Directed by MF Husain ©Films Division, Government of India

Through the Eyes of a Painter is 1967 Indian film written, directed and filmed by M. F. Husain, the famous Indian painter. The film was produced by the Films Division of Government of India. This experimental film presents the painter's images of Rajasthan, through cinema. There is not a single dialogue in this film of fifteen minutes duration. The heart of this film is its music, which was composed by Elchuri Vijaya Raghava Rao of Andhra Pradesh. The film Through the Eyes of a Painter fetched the 1st prize, in The Golden Bear 17th International Film Festival during the first week of July 1967, held in Berlin.


The Rooted Nomad
MF Husain

Maqbool Fida Husain (1915-2011), one of the most iconic contemporary artists of India, continues to demand critical attention to his multi-dimensional practice that embraced various media formats, defied artistic hierarchies and displaced the divide between high and popular art. The historical extent of India as one of the oldest civilizations in human history and an independent nation-state that gained freedom from colonial subjugation in 1947 , unfolded obsessively in M.F. Husain’s prolific oeuvre. An expansive post-colonial consciousness informed his practice, which involved adapting indigenous idioms in his expression and breaking free from colonial indoctrination. Seamlessly weaving together mythologies, shared histories, literature and manifestations, Husain articulated his syncretic vision of a modern India through a lexicon of symbolic iconographies anchored in a secular artistic sensibility.


The exhibition title uses two opposing expressions ‘nomad’ and ‘rooted’ that counter each other but in conjunction, create an imaginary panorama to deliberate the complex figure of Husain. His nomadic predilection needs to be read through the peculiarities that shaped his life. Much has been written about Husain ‘walking barefoot across the nation’ and his pressing impulse to be on the streets, at roadside cafes, sipping tea and reading the newspaper, stepping into the lanes and by lanes of the city, sensing the pulse of the everyday, painting amidst people, witnessing and fathoming the complex and layered land called India. The breadth of experiences he gathered evoke multiple journeys into time and place while moving across borders and locations, ruminating on chosen constellations of his works that dwell upon ideas of mobility and migration. Aligning to that, the exhibition is an attempt to unpack expanded notions of the ‘yatra’(journey), as a crux to civilizational ethos, artistic calling as well as a metaphor for transformation.


Resonating with the 2024 Venice Biennale’s theme of “Foreigners Everywhere,” the dual format structure of the exhibition with alternating scales, plays out the juxtapositions of the physical and virtual presentation, a navigation between still and moving images, with original artworks leading the viewers into a first-time immersive on the artist.

In a fragmented world marked by increasing nomadic displacements, people being deemed foreigners in their homelands, alienation and exile, Husain’s art and life regain a pressing relevance.