A New Delhi court has ordered two paintings by artist M. F. Hussain to be seized after they were accused of ‘hurting religious sentiments’.
The paintings in question depicted the Hindu gods Ganesha and Hanuman surrounded by naked women. The works were on display at the Delhi Art Gallery (DAG) as part of the show “Hussain: A Timeless Modernist”. It ran from October 26 to December 14, and displayed over 100 artworks by the artist. On December 4, a lawyer, Amita Sachdeva, posted the images of the paintings on X, calling them “offensive”. She filed a police complaint on December 9 and claimed when she visited the gallery the next day with a police officer, the paintings were missing and the gallery claimed to have never displayed them.
Nonetheless, a court in Delhi accepted the complaint on Monday and ordered the seizure of the two paintings. The DAG responded to the decision: “Given its implicit belief in artistic freedom, DAG denies any wrongdoing as alleged by the complainant who has publicly claimed to be principally driven by a religious agenda. In fact, the complainant has herself displayed and publicised the images of the drawings over social media and television news media deliberately intending them to be viewed by a larger audience, while contending that the same images hurt her personal religious sentiments.”
Maqbool Fida Hussain was one of the most iconic painters in Indian history, and certainly no stranger to controversies. His frequent depiction of Hindu deities as naked or among other naked figures often drew ire from Hindu organizations – particularly because Hussain was a Muslim. M. F. Hussain left India and settled in London in 2006, where he lived until his death in 2011.