Husain's Raj forefronts the playful quality in the work of Maqbool Fida Husain, independent India's most iconic modernist. The book focuses on a series of paintings in which the artist offers a postcolonial visual commentary on the erstwhile colonial world in which he had been born and raised.
Thsese works are densly packed with objects and people (British and native, high and low, male and female) and some animals as well, brought together in narrative action that reveals the anxieties and absurdities of imperial rule in India
Husain came of age in the waning days of Bristish colonial rule and was witness to the rising tide of Indian nationalism. Instead of providing grim portraits of what it meant to grow up in such a context, he presents humorous and insightful vignettes of the Raj to a new generation of viewers - many of whom would not have experienced colonial rule directly - showing us how it is possible, even necessary, to laugh while looking back at a painful and traumatic past.
Sumathi Ramaswamy is Professor of History and International Comparative Studies, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina. Some of her areas of academic interest include South Asian anthropology, colonial and modern history; Tamil studies; gender studies and history of cartography.
About The Marg Foundation
This collection features comprehensive coffee-table books from Marg, one of India’s foremost publishing houses for the arts. The books in this collection deal with the arts of Sindh, Lahore and Nepal; with the architecture of South India, Sultanates and beyond; with dance forms; with artists; with religion; with pop culture; with textiles, and much more. Each is meticulously researched with lavish visuals, taking the reader on a journey through culture.
Based in Mumbai, Marg has long been a bastion of India’s rich heritage, with its prolific body of coffee-table publications and quarterly magazines. Marg’s publications are often hard to categorise; they push boundaries to delve deep into the subjects they cover.