MAQBOOL FIDA HUSAIN (1913-2011)

"I have tried to capture in my paintings what [Mother Teresa's] presence meant to the destitute and the dying, the light and hope she brought by mere inquiry, by putting her hand over a child abandoned in a street. I did not cry at this encounter. I returned with so much strength and sadness that it continues to ferment within. That is why I try it again and again, after a gap of time, in a different medium. To translate that pain in my paintings, I think I will have to die of it" (Artist statement, I. Pal, Beyond the Canvas: An Unfinished Portrait of M F Husain, New Delhi, 1994, p. 166).