Sunita Kumar and the artworks on display at Victoria Memorial to pay tribute to Mother Teresa. (Rashbehari Das)

Mother Teresa’s birth centenary is being celebrated in the Victoria Memorial Hall, and the Portrait Gallery on the ground floor is hung up with paintings of M.F. Husain and Sunita Kumar.

Both artists were close to the Albanian nun, who had in 1950 founded the Missionaries of Charity in Calcutta, where the sick, dying and the destitute discovered bliss, even if it was only before they breathed their last.

Kumar says she first met Mother Teresa in 1965 at a meeting of some ladies who made paper packets for leprosy patients.

And Husain, when he visited her at Mother House, was so moved that he cried when he came out of it. Thereafter, he visited all her houses for six weeks.

The artist called up Kumar and suggested that they hold an exhibition together titled the “twenty 20 Paintings”, referring to the number of works each participant would display.

The governor, M.K. Narayanan, will inaugurate the exhibition on Monday evening and Sister Nirmala of the Missionaries of Charity will be the chief guest.

Kumar says Mother Teresa in her last days had a great desire to visit China. So she was told that she was already there. She had a home in Hong Kong, which was part of China. Husain, on the other hand, had prepared a show for China which ultimately did not happen. Viewers can see this tribute to Mother Teresa done on large paper scrolls.

Both Kumar and Husain show Mother Teresa in humble surroundings. Husain’s Mother has Indian children on her lap, as well as a lamb and occasionally a dove in her hands. The child is often blue, perhaps a reference to Bal Gopal, while Mother Teresa sits on a charpoy with a broken umbrella, a symbol of security, hanging on the wall behind her.

Curiously, in some of the frames, there are views of a church and cypresses seen through a church window, perhaps a reference to Mother Teresa’s Albanian origins.

Mother Teresa was fond of children and stray dogs — she had picked up a dog from the street — and she has roosters and goats around her. In one frame, a stained glass window is made up entirely of children. There are dying men with her, in the familiar Pieta attitude. These are quite stark and grey paintings in spite of the green, ochre, vermilion and green in some.

Not surprisingly, Husain’s signature is in mandarin characters. When he is in Rome, Husain believes in doing as the Romans do.

Sunita Kumar’s acrylic on canvas paintings have brighter and more feminine colours — candy pink and blue. A self-taught artist, Sotheby’s had auctioned her work in London in September last year.

She had published a book titled Blessed Teresa in 1998 on her first death anniversary.

Mother Teresa is depicted in her various homes like Nirmal Hriday, Gandhi Nivas in Titagarh and Shishu Bhavan. She has also painted the train in Darjeeling in which it was revealed to her that her true calling was outside Loreto Convent.

In a more light-hearted mood, Mother Teresa is on a swing with a little girl.

Significantly, neither Husain nor Sunita Kumar has depicted Mother Teresa’s face, although she is easily identifiable by her sari with the blue border. All you need is love.