Acknowledgements

MARGUERITE CHARUGUNDLA

When we decided to republish this book, it felt right. When was a better time to publish the second edition than on the occasion of the exhibition The Progressive Revolution: Modern Art for a New India and M.F. Husain: Art and the Nation, organized and showcased by the Asia Society Museum of New York. It was the first comprehensive exhibition dedicated to the artworks of the Progressive Artists’ Group. Thanks to the curator and museum director, Boon Hui Tan and guest curator, Dr. Zehra Jumabhoy for such a major undertaking and making this exhibition possible and a great success. The publishers would like to express their appreciation to all those who have generously given their time, made their resources available, and given valuable feedback to make this book a success. Our utmost gratitude goes to the contributors, Susan S. Bean, Daniel Herwitz, Prasannan Parthasarathi, Gayatri Sinha and Boon Hui Tan, for their brilliant essays, as well as Tom Keehn, for his personal commentary. Many thanks are in order for the Peabody Essex Museum for allowing us to use images from their collection for Susan Bean’s essay. Lightning was the subject of a publication for the first time in the book titled Where Art Thou: M.F. Husain—an Autobiography with Khalid Mohamed. We also would like to extend our appreciation to Khalid Mohamed and the late M.F. Husain for having allowed us to reprint the spread on Lightning from his publication. Thank you to Asia Society for allowing us to publish this book in conjunction with the exhibition of M.F. Husain: Art and the Nation, March 20 through August 4, 2019 at Asia Society Museum of New York and part of the Progressive Revolution: Modern Art for New India and the Triennial. Also many thanks to Boon Hui Tan and Asia Society for allowing us to include Boon Hui Tan’s essay about the Progressive Artists’ Group and the mural Lightning. We would like to extend our special thanks to the General Manager and staff of the Maurya Sheraton Hotel (New Delhi) for accommodating M.F. Husain’s request to close down the lobby in order to show the Lightning mural in its full glory. There are number of others who were instrumental in making this process easier and productive, without whom this book would not have been possible, which includes the lighting and music engineers, the photographers, the organizers, the editors, the graphic designers, illustrators, event coordinators and art handlers.

Lightning

Horses as metaphor for tremendous energy, and exquisite grace and beauty. There are ten horses cutting across the horizon like lightning, and in between appears a baby horse wearing the nuclear crown, an indication that the world has entered the most dynamic nuclear era of its billions of years of existence. Here, there on the canvas, a few images of industry, agriculture, progress and family planning are inserted. The bold, black brush-strokes are like calligraphic form. In a way these black strokes become a “writing on the wall.” The world should take a note of it!

M.F. Husain, 2003