Page 14 - M F Husain The Eternal Master
P. 14

rapidly than traditional hoarding painters, and create poster   life  by marrying Fazila. As  the family  grew,  financial
                                                                                                                                                                            art which was much more attractive.                             responsibilities mounted, leading Husain to relinquish this
                                                                                                                                                                                   Husain worked as a cinema-hoarding painter for           career. He found employment designing nursery furniture
                                                                                                                                                                            nearly five years. During this time, he became an assistant to   and wooden toys at the Fantasy Furniture shop, earning
                                                                                                                                                                            Bhide, then the most renowned cinema-hoarding painter in        a modest salary. In addition to design, he was tasked with

                                                                                                                                                                            Bombay, operating from Prabhat Studios of M. Shantaram.         inscribing nursery rhymes, such as “Jack and Jill Went up the
                                                                                                                                                                            He also ventured into independent billboard painting for        Hill,” on pastel blue and pink furniture surfaces.
                                                                                                                                                                            New Theatres’ film promotions.                                       Husain’s creative spirit, however, could not be contained
                                                                                                                                                                                  In 1941, Husain took a significant step in his personal   by the constraints of nursery furniture design. Drawing





























                                                                                                                                                                            A newspaper clipping about a painting by Husain created in collaboration with Shah Rukh Khan
                  Swaraj is my Birthright commemorative stamp (Issued by India Post in 1988)  A picture of the artist from the 1980s







                       In those early years, he honed his ability to paint             Trying to sustain himself in the bustling metropolis,
                  portraits, a skill that offered a means of survival for several   Husain explored other avenues. An acquaintance from his
                  artists in Bombay. His early works included a watercolour      hometown, Indore, worked as a cinema-hoarding painter in
                  portrait  of  Bismillah  Bi,  the  mother  of  his  friend  Abdul   Bombay, and Husain joined him as an assistant. It was during

                  Wahid, and another of the mother of Husain Khichdiwala,        this time that Husain discovered his unique ability of being
                  who ran a soup kitchen serving rice and daal known as          able to enlarge images from photographs to hoarding without
                  khichdi and kadhi. However, these modest endeavours were       needing to adhere to the traditional method of gridding. This
                  insufficient for a young artist in pursuit of his dreams.      radical approach, it would turn out, allowed him to work more



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