Qatar: museum for work of renowned Indian artist set to open
Image courtesy of The Art Newspaper
Doha in Qatar will become home to the world’s first and largest museum dedicated to Indian modernist M.F. Husain on November 28th, according to The Art Newspaper on October 1st.
The museum space, is a project by the Qatar Foundation, which is chaired by Sheikha Moza bint Nasser, a prolific collector of Husain’s works. Called “Lawh Wa Qalam: M. F. Husain Museum”, the museum will house some of the artist’s early canvases, as well as his films, tapestry, photography and poetry alongside his final work, Seero fi al ardh (Walking in the Earth) – a piece commissioned by Moza in 2009.
Husain, born in 1915, was among India’s leading modernist painters in the 1950s. A member of the Progressive Arts Group, he was known for his sometimes controversial depictions of Hindu mythology.
The mid-90s saw protests erupting in response to his picture of Hindu goddess Saraswati in nude. In 2006, he was accused of obscenity over painting what was seen as a personification of India. Husain ultimately went to live in the Persian Gulf in self-initiated exile. Husain was later welcomed graciously in the Gulf, and the Qatari Royal Family offered him citizenship in 2010.
Artists in 2025 are no strangers to the kind of persecution Husain faced. While art serves as a powerful medium for documenting and responding to socio-political issues, artists do bear the burden of fear and censorship. On September 23rd, the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum in Madrid, Spain, opened a free exhibition titled “Gaza Through Their Eyes.”
The show features unsigned photographs of war-torn Gaza, with the decision to keep the photographers’ anonymous reflecting the very real fear of persecution that Husain also endured.
Lawh Wa Qalam, will be located in Doha’s Education City, which is a university campus, and is inspired by one of Husain’s own sketches. The sketch presents a bright blue building with a white column protruding from one side and apertures resembling Arabic letters in the facade. The new museum is a result of a rise in market interest for Husain’s work.
The Art Newspaper, Maghrebi.org, Mint
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