Qatar Foundation will inaugurate the Lawh Wa Qalam: M. F. Husain Museum on November 28, 2025, marking a groundbreaking addition to Qatar's cultural landscape. The museum represents the world's first institution entirely dedicated to tracing the artistic journey of renowned artist Maqbool Fida Husain from the 1950s until his death in 2011. Located within Qatar Foundation's prestigious Education City in Doha, the museum offers visitors an immersive experience in a building that was actually designed by the artist himself.
Spanning over 3,000 square meters, the museum will house a comprehensive permanent exhibition featuring Husain's diverse body of work, including paintings, films, tapestry, photography, poetry, and installations. The collection will be presented through cutting-edge multimedia storytelling techniques, creating an engaging and educational experience for visitors. The museum aims to foster creativity and dialogue while serving as a dynamic space for learning and exploration within the broader Education City campus.
The museum joins an impressive collection of architectural landmarks within Education City, which occupies a 12-square-kilometer campus designed as a dense, mixed-use urban environment. The campus integrates education, research, recreation, and heritage preservation, bringing together international branch campuses, a home-grown university, start-ups, cultural institutions, and sports facilities. Notable structures by internationally recognized architects anchor the site, including works by Arata Isozaki, Rem Koolhaas, Antoine Predock, and firms such as Legorreta + Legorreta and Mangera Yvars Architects.
Education City's master plan incorporates public spaces with green areas and sports infrastructure, including a stadium, all organized around pedestrian networks and a tram system. In keeping with its commitment to contextual grounding, Education City also preserves historic Qatari heritage sites, seamlessly integrating early-20th-century structures into its contemporary landscape.
The design of Lawh Wa Qalam: M. F. Husain Museum is specifically intended to offer an immersive art experience, inviting campus visitors to step directly into Husain's world and explore the influences, philosophies, and memories that shaped his artistic practice. A highlight of the museum will be 'Seeroo fi al ardh,' Husain's final major work—an installation conceived in 2009 that depicts humanity's progress. This piece will be incorporated into the museum as a dedicated gallery, where visitors can experience the work through a specially curated presentation designed to honor the artist's vision.
The architectural concept mirrors a sketch created by Husain himself, who envisioned the building as an artwork in its own right, reflecting his lifelong experimentation across multiple disciplines. This approach ensures that the museum structure itself becomes part of the artistic narrative, blurring the lines between container and content.
Maqbool Fida Husain, known professionally as M. F. Husain, was an Indian-born modern artist whose paintings are often associated with Cubism and modern artistic movements. As a founding member of the Progressive Artists' Group formed in Bombay (now Mumbai) in 1947, he is considered closely connected to the cultural and social transitions of his time. According to Qatar Foundation, Husain played a leading role in reshaping modern art in India by moving beyond traditional academic painting and miniaturist traditions.
Husain's life spanned major global and regional events, from two World Wars and the Partition of the British Raj to the Cold War and various conflicts in South and West Asia. His work actively engaged with postcolonial experiences, rural cultures, diverse religious narratives, and South and Southwest Asian mythologies. His artistic practice extended far beyond traditional painting, encompassing oil and watercolor painting, lithography, serigraphy, sculpture, architecture, and installation art. He was also accomplished as a filmmaker, poet, and memoirist who wrote in Urdu, Hindi, and English. Known for calling himself a 'global nomad,' Husain ultimately settled in Qatar toward the end of his life, making this museum location particularly meaningful.
The opening of the M. F. Husain Museum comes during a notable period of new exhibitions and cultural institutions linked to architecture, art, and design worldwide. Recent openings include the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art, which announced it will open to the public on September 22, 2026, in Los Angeles's Exposition Park. In Ghana, the Limbo Museum opened its first public exhibition on October 31 in a formerly abandoned Brutalist estate. In Harlem, New York, the Studio Museum, designed by Adjaye Associates in collaboration with Cooper Robertson, opened on November 15 as a new facility dedicated to artists of African descent. Additionally, the first Ismaili Center opened in Houston, designed by Farshid Moussavi Architecture and Nelson Byrd Woltz Landscape Architects, integrating spaces for worship, gathering, and reflection for both the Ismaili community and the wider public.
The Lawh Wa Qalam: M. F. Husain Museum represents not only a significant cultural milestone for Qatar but also establishes a new model for artist-specific museums worldwide. By combining Husain's own architectural vision with comprehensive multimedia presentations of his work, the museum promises to offer visitors an unprecedented immersive experience into the mind and artistry of one of the most influential modern artists from South Asia.
