According to Forbes magazine, he has been called the “Picasso of India”. After a long, successful career his work suddenly became controversial in 1996, when he was 81 years old, following the publication of an article about nude images of Hindu deities painted in the 1970s.

Husain comes from a Muslim Indian family. His mother died when he was one and a half years old. His father remarried and moved to Indore, where Husain went to school. In 1935, he moved to Bombay and was admitted to the Sir J. J. School of Art. He started off by painting cinema hoardings.