He transcended silence to fill world with colours

Nonika Singh

“No outer happening can seed inner composition. It must happen to you personally,” observed Satish Gujral. Thus Partition became the starting point of one of India’s greatest artists who breathed his last on March 26. His life story, of course, began much before the birth of free India (born in 1925 in Jhelum) and echoes its pangs, aspirations, cultural moorings and more.

His Partition series that include “Mourning En Masse” and “Days of Glory” captured the brutality of those times most vividly. “Partition impacted his entire body of work and traces of it can be seen in his later creations too,” says Diwan Manna, president of Punjab Lalit Kala Akademi.

Hailed a true modernist, what set him apart from other progressive artists of that era, was the way he adopted modernism in his unique way, adds Manna.

As distinctive an artist as an individual, a lesser man would have been devastated by the suffering that he endured in early life. Having lost his hearing and speech ability at the age of eight, he rose like a phoenix to emblazon the sky of Indian art with a mastery and versatility known to few artists. Sculptor, painter, architect, muralist and even interior designer; whether medium is the message or not, he dabbled in many. Paint, wood, metal, paper collage, ceramics: for him material was the language of art, the vehicle of an idea. Having studied art from the prestigious Mayo School of Arts (now National College of Arts, Pakistan) and JJ School of

Art, Mumbai, the multi-disciplinary approach to art came naturally to him.

In the initial rush of artistic impulses, he wanted to paint on walls. This was also the offshoot of having apprenticed with David Alfaro Siqueiros and Diego Rivera, two artists who led muralist movement in Mexico where he had gone to study on an art scholarship. Later he may have revised his views on art and felt it was not for propaganda but he remained a huge votary of public art and went on to create huge murals.

Change was the only constant in the life of the man who transcended the silence within to fill the world around with colours and robustness. Marriage to Kiran Gujral, who became his bridge to life, changed his colour palette. He admitted in an interview that after marrying Kiran he had no reason to be frustrated. Rather he was to rise to a stature of envy. His privileged position in later years made him the toast of elite. After all not everyone is the brother of a Prime Minister (IK Gujral). Not everyone is feted with country’s second highest civilian award, Padma Vibhushan. In fact, his achievements are very many and as variegated as the phases in his artistic career. Though not a formal architect, he designed the Belgium Embassy in New Delhi, selected by the International Forum of Architects as one of the 1,000 best built buildings in the 20th Century all over the world.

Architect and artist SS Bhatti sums him up as “a beautiful human being in letter and spirit, most original, prodigious, and prolific artist of India who, for his awesome creativity, actually belongs to the world.” And also to Chandigarh not just for being a Punjabi, but also for the fact that some of his murals adorn our cityscape. A restless painter for whom each day was a new day today rests in peace. The vitality and solidity of his art may have stemmed from stillness but subsumed not just the silence within but the very essence of India.