MF HUSAIN DIED

Great artist MF HUSAIN died at 2.30Am in Landon on Thursday.Hussain was in self-imposed exile since 2006 after Hindu groups threatened him for his paintings of Hindu deities. He died at the age of 95. He was under treatment last week.

According to Forbes magazine, he has been called the "Picasso of India".In 1996 controversy arose over paintings originally painted in the 1970s which were interpreted as anti-Hindu. After legal cases and death threats in his home country, he was on a self imposed exile from 2006. In January, 2010, he was offered the citizenship of Qatar, which he accepted.

As of now, he has not responded to summons from an Indian district court in Haridwar, his properties in India are therefore attached as per court orders and a bailable warrant is issued against him in the said court.

Husain first became well-known as an artist in the late 1940s. In 1947, he joined the Progressive Artists' Group, founded by Francis Newton Souza. This was a clique of young artists who wished to break with the nationalist traditions established by the Bengal school of art and to encourage an Indian avant-garde, engaged at an international level. In 1952, his first solo exhibition was held at Zürich and over the next few years, his work was widely seen in Europe and the U.S. In 1955, he was awarded the prestigious Padma Shree prize by the Government of India.