Remembering Rania

Punjab Lalit Kala Akademi State Academy of Art, Ministry of Culture, Government of Punjab) held a memorial meeting to pay tribute to artist R S Rania on Sunday at Punjab Kala Bhawan, Chandigarh. 

On this occasion, Diwan Manna, artist and president of Punjab Lalit Kala Akademi, professor B N Goswamy renowned art historian and Padma Bhushan, architect S D Sharma and artist Malkit Singh shared their memories of the artist and paid tributes to him. Diwan Manna mentioned the fact that Rania could have been better known here in India had he not migrated to the west. He also thanked Tania (Rania’s daughter), Uma Jain of Dhoomimal Art Gallery, Gurbinder Singh (Canada) , Daljit Kaur (USA), Malkit Singh, Suresh Sharma, Amarjit Chandan (UK) for providing information and images to prepare the audio visual presentation comprising 72 slides.

Rania was born in Punjab in village Rania in1933, he received his art education from College of Art Shimla (Now known as College of Art Chandigarh) 1954-59. He passed away on January 26, 2017 in Toronto, Canada.

Before his death he had been continually working on his art work. Even when he was sick and didn’t have the space to set up to paint he asked Tania to buy him a sketch pad so he could start drawing in pencil. This is how his latest drawings began, which are part of his new collection called Through The Grills of Time. She was helping him to compile all the drawings into a catalogue and it was almost done before he died.

Rania has held many solo shows of his artworks at Fine Arts Museum, Panjab University Chandigarh; Dhoomimal Art Gallery, Delhi; Commonwealth Art gallery, London; Mazelow art Gallery Toronto; Art Gallery Moos, Toronto; New Stanley Art Gallery, Nairoby, Kenya; Gainsborough Art Gallery, Lethbridge, Alberta; Picture Loan Gallery, Toronto; Nancy Poole Art Gallery, Toronto.   — TNS