Inscribed and dated 'Mc Bull New York '83' (lower right)
Bearing Vadehra Art label (on back of the frame)
PROVENANCE
Christie's / Sale 12174 / Lot 655 / South Asian Modern and Contemporary Art / New York / September 2016
Artiana / Sale 1701 / Lot 48 / South Asian Art - Classical, Modern and Contemporary / Dubai / 23 - 27 March 2017
Private collection, Dubai
LOT ESSAY
From the beginning, M.F. Husain had been responsive to the force of symbolization. In his works, the coexistence of man, seasons, and animals is not on a mundane nor realistic level. He employed them repeatedly and relied on the capacity of their metaphors to reflect the ambiguities of reality, using signs and symbols to evoke them and the associative power of colours to convey specific emotions in his composition.
He incorporates animal forms to represent nature and embody their emotional, literary and mythical associations. The character of his metaphors, the tiger, as in the current work, is not the subject of the work but the inspiring principle that it depicts. Much like a fable, he includes them to reflect and enhance the mood of the human character present, successfully creating a visual poetry that has its rhythm, symbolism, and its own sensuous and abstract connotations.