Exhibition at Asia Society Museum New York
March 20 through August 4, 2019
M.F. Husain. Lightning, 1975. Oil on canvas. Twelve panels, overall: H.10 x W. 60 ft. (3 x 18 m)
One of the founding members of the Bombay Progressive Artists' Group, M.F. Husain, created the mural-sized painting Lightning for then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s Congress Party public rally in 1975 in Bombay (Mumbai), the same year that a state of emergency was imposed across India. The twelve massive panels of Lightning are littered with visual references to India and the 1970s, and though absent visually, to Indira Gandhi.
