Sobha Singh’s family asks Russia to trace painting

Amaninder Pal

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Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, August 23

Legend has it that Sohni’s lover Mahiwal hailed from Bukhara (Uzbekistan), which was a constituent of the erstwhile Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). About 60 years after a Soviet diplomat purchased an iconic Sohni-Mahiwal painting from Sobha Singh, the legendary artist’s family has appealed to Russia to trace the work and put it on display.

Sobha Singh, whose 30th death anniversary fell today, had made the painting in 1957. He created several versions of Punjab’s love legend, even as his family knows about five such works.

Sobha Singh’s grandson Hirday Paul Singh told The Tribune, “Two Sohni-Mahiwal paintings are displayed in the art gallery at the artist’s home in Andretta (Himachal Pradesh). Another is part of the collection of Karan Singh, scion of the Jammu and Kashmir royal family, who purchased it in 1952 and got it printed in 1953-54.”

“Two paintings are unaccounted for – one made before Partition and the other which was bought by the diplomat. The latter was attracted to the painting due to Mahiwal’s Uzbek link,” Hirday Paul added, while expressing inability to identify the envoy.

In his book, ‘Divine Painter Sobha Singh’, published to mark the artist’s birth centenary in 2001, researcher Kulwant Singh Khokhar wrote that the painting’s fourth version was procured by the USSR official.

Freelance writer Daljit Ami, who has done research on Sobha Singh’s iconography, said, “The artist made the first Sohni-Mahiwal painting in 1937 in Sheikhupura, now in Pakistan.”

The print commonly seen today is a copy of the painting that was purchased by Karan Singh.