000			02263nam a2200181Ia 4500
001			5875
008			250915s9999 xx 000 0 und d
020			_a9789383243136
245		0	_aHusain's Raj: Visions of Empire and Nation/ _cMaqbool Fida Husain Sumathi Ramaswamy
260			_bMarg Publications; _c2016
300			_a144p; _c31x25cm
520			_a• This will be the first monograph-length analysis of Husain's paintings • Husain's Raj Series featured playful vignettes of the Raj that introduced the British Empire in India to a new generation of viewers • Husain's signature modernist style is modulated to accommodate this playful engagement with his colonial past This monograph forefronts the ludic quality in the work of Maqbool Fida Husain, postcolonial India's most iconic modernist and also arguably its most playful. His Images of the Raj or the Raj Series comprise paintings densely packed with bodies and objects, English and native, men and women (and some animals too), who are brought together in visual action in a manner that is enormously revealing of the contradictions of British rule in India, even as they expose the ironies of postcolonial India's tryst with its destiny. Husain painted this series at a critical juncture in India s post-colonial history in the mid- 1980s, when the Nehruvian socialist state was beginning to unravel and one of his own key patrons, Indira Gandhi, violently assassinated. Many of the promises of secularism, proudly declared at the time of Independence, were under threat. It was against this background that Husain turned for inspiration to his childhood and youth, which he had spent in various princely states, such as Indore and Baroda, in the waning days of British colonial rule that were also witness to the rising tide of Indian nationalism. 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.
546			_aEnglish
650			_aN8350-8356 Art as a profession. Artists _98282
651			_aIndia _98283
700			_aHusain, M. F. _98284
942			_cBK
999			_c5875 _d5875