Indian painter agrees $21m deal (BBC)

Maqbool Fida Husain has been commissioned by a businessman to create 100 paintings for a series entitled "Our Planet Called Earth". The buyer, Guru Swarup Srivasava, a low-profile Bombay (Mumbai) businessman who is not an art collector, will pay Rs. 1 billion (~$21 million) for the paintings.

Husain says that he will make another movie with the money. Who will be the muse this time?

I didn't know that his first film, Through the Eyes of a Painter, on the desert state of Rajasthan, won him a Golden Bear award at the Berlin Film Festival in 1997.

UPDATE: Sep 12 2004: The Guardian (UK) article on this deal notes the significance of this deal for Indian art in general.