Maqbool Fida Husain (India, 1915-2011)That Obscure Object of Desire 8
Inscribed '"That Obscure Object of Desire". (8)' lower left
Oil on canvas
75 x 100cm (29 1/2 x 39 3/8in).注脚Provenance:
Sotheby's, The Indian Sale, London, 24 May 2007, lot 86.
Private UK collection.

Beginning around 1948 the female subject matter began to dominate Husain's painting. However, the artist's chosen manner of representation contrasts with traditional depictions of the female in both the east and the west. The featured work is neither realistic nor idealistic. Husain had travelled to Europe in 1952, several years prior to the execution of this painting, and was inspired by the works of Emile Nolde and Oskar Kokoschka. The spiritual intensity and vitality of these artists' use of colour and the sculptural power of the line, seen particularly in Nolde's work, had a clear impact on Husain's aesthetic. Upon his return the artist stated: "Line is virile form with keen latent mobility, which in spite of being imperceptible in nature, is constantly striving to assert itself." (To Badrivishal Pittie, The First Indian Collector of Husain Paintings (1952-68) Replica of the First Husain Book Published, Hyderabad, 1955.)

Husain once said 'When I make nude paintings of women you will find that there is no nakedness in this nudity'. This present lot, although both figures are naked and legs intertwined, is distinctly devoid of eroticism. It is a pureness of being that Husain has captured, the nudity a way to strip the figure down to her most vulnerable.

It was Husain's love of film that had a profound impact on some of his later work, especially once he began to produce films of his own. In 1967, Husain directed his first film 'Through the Eyes of a Painter', which received the National Film Award for Best Experimental Film and the Golden Bear at the Berlin International Film Festival.

This work is part of a series based upon Luis Buñuel's 1977 directed film of the same name. Similarly to the stylistic devices of the film, each work is presented as a flashback, the paintings reminiscent of key events in Husain's own life.

"The film is about a male character whose desire for a certain woman leads to entrapment. The entrapment is that of a situation in which the man cannot tell who this woman - the object of his desire - is. Specifically the woman turns out to be a dual figure played by two look-alike yet distinct actresses who play her as alternately passionate and cruel, enticing and rejecting, kind and humiliating. The key is that the woman is an obscure object, one whose integrity and identity are in doubt." (D. Herwitz, Husain, The Tata Iron & Steel Co. Ltd, Bombay, 1988, p. 26)