Did India fail MF Husain? Doha opens world’s first museum dedicated to master artist

With the grand opening of world’s first museum dedicated to prolific works of the legendary India-born Maqbool Fida Husain in Doha, many in the Indian art community are left wondering if India failed to recognise one of its greatest contemporary artists, who sought refuge in Qatar during his later years.

On November 28, 2025, a museum dedicated to MF Husain opened its doors to the public. Conceived largely along the lines of his own painting of a cobalt-coloured volumetric spatial configuration, Delhi-based architect Martand Khosla was able to capture the essence of colour in concrete, creating an eternal edifice to a Great Modernist Master of Progressive Art Group that took root in independent India in 1947, along with FN Souza, SH Raza, KH Ara, HA Gade, and SK Bakr.

Many are unaware that Husain also served as an honorary Rajya Sabha Member of Parliament from 1986-92, where he spent much time observing his peers, eventually producing a book of sketches titled Sansad Upanishad: MF Husain in Parliament (1994).

The newly opened 32,300-sq ft Lawh Wa Qalam (Canvas of the Pen): MF Husain Museum in Doha’s Education City features some of his most ambitious works created in the years of self-imposed exile in Qatar. The cobalt cuboid fractal spaces come together in a congruent clash of colour defining the space that emulates Husain’s audacity and restless vibrancy that celebrates perception as a key well-spring of the spirit that powers imagination. The 12-sq km Education City has a confluence of over 100 works of public art from around the world, strategically aligned to accommodate an art festival movement in Qatar akin to Art Basel, in 2026.

Catapulting to early fame with bucking cubist horses painted in crying colours and intense brush strokes, Maqbool Fida Husain (1913-2011) rose to notoriety with his provocative pursuits beyond the brush. Recognised instantly by his lanky frame, long white hair competing with a silver beard, barefoot benevolence and the long brush, he personified passion for creative expression. His mind was a storm of strokes, each craving a canvas.

He had left India for Dubai in 2006, following violent protests and lawsuits stemming from his nude depiction of Hindu gods and deities, among others. He accepted Qatari citizenship in 2010 with a heavy heart and immediately applied for his OCI Card (Overseas Citizen of Indian Origin) as he felt alienated from his being. Sheikha Moza bint Nasser Al-Missned, the wife of the former Emir of Qatar, Co-founder and Chair of Qatar Foundation, commissioned him to produce 99 works inspired by the middle-east, leading up to his final multi-media installation posthumously completed ‘Seeroo fi al Ardh’, inspired by mythology and buoyed by movement of man and material that manifested sand into standing monuments of time.

In his illustrious trajectory, he remained undeterred, unfettered and unapologetic, unleashing an unprecedented volume of 40,000 works on every surface he could find, from napkins, masonite, canvas, paper, walls, wood, fabric to glass, that continues to resonate with a wide demographic across cultures and nationalities, seldom experienced in the art world. Pulsing paint with pun, his works demanded dialogue and deliberation.

The museum maps the personal journey of MF Husain with rare insights into his life and times as he experienced light, colour and form. The hard lines of the building are juxtaposed with the fluidity of 150 art works and shifting mediums from paint to multi-media to books, films and calligraphy — each gallery a masterstroke of energy and exuberance.

Fourteen years after his death, one of his little-known 14-feet-long 1954 masterpiece untitled Gram Yatra fetched $13.8 million at a Christie’s Auction in New York — making it the highest amount paid for an Indian artist. The painting, depicting the plight of the Indian farmer, was first acquired by a Norwegian doctor who donated it to the Oslo University Hospital where it remained for decades, prior to it going on the auction block.

Through his travels and travails, Husain remained deeply connected to cinema and storytelling. While he started his career as a Bollywood billboard painter, he later lived his legacy directing a handful of movies, including Through the Eyes of a Painter (1967), Gaja Gamini (2000), critically acclaimed Meenaxi (2004) and several documentaries.

Though some in the arts community have opined that India should have stepped up to create a museum in Husain’s legacy, he was bestowed with multiple High civilian honours in India, including the Padma Shri (1966), Padma Bhushan (1973), and Padma Vibhushan (1991). His paintings are on display at the National Gallery of Modern Art, National Gallery of Singapore, Victoria and Albert Museum and the Jehangir Nicholson Art Gallery in addition to countless private collections and corporate buildings. While his mortal remains were buried in a cemetery in the United Kingdom, his nostalgia for India was palpable as he would often wistfully remark: “I am an Indian-origin painter. I will remain so to my last breath.”

(India-born Dr George Jacob, FRCGS, is a Canadian museum director, designer, artist and author of seminal books on the future of museum practice)