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| MF Husain with Madhuri Dixit |
M F Husain India's best known painter, died in London on Thursday aged 95. His death was mourned by artists and drew condolences from politicians, several of whom who have been criticised for not being able to guarantee him the freedom he needed.
A spokesman for the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party called it "a great loss", sentiments echoed by President Pratibha Patil and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.
He was so prolific that it didn't matter whether some of his art appealed to the masses and some of it was appreciated at the highest level, Anjolie Ela Menon, a leading Indian artist, told Times Now television.
Famous for walking barefoot and carrying a large paintbrush like a riding crop, Husain started as a struggling commercial painter creating cinema hoardings in the late 1930s.
His depictions of naked Hindu goddesses enraged zealots who attacked his house, vandalised shows displaying his work and drove him to flee India. For years, galleries were too frightened of protests to display his work.
In 2006, he moved from Mumbai to Dubai, later London, and in 2010 accepted Qatari citizenship, a step that led to much soul-searching in India over whether the world's largest democracy could guarantee artistic freedoms.
