Manjit Bawa: Artist par excellence in the figurative style

Born in Dhuri, Punjab in 1941, Manjit Bawa discovered his penchant for art early on in life. Encouraged by his brothers to pursue art, he attended the College of Art, New Delhi, in 1958. He studied under Abani Sen, who helped him develop a distinct style and to make the figurative idiom his own at a time when abstraction was dominant.

Making art a career

Bawa moved to Britain in 1964, where he continued his artistic practice and worked as a silkscreen painter. After spending eight years in England, during which he made sets for theatre and worked as a painter, the budding artist returned to India. Bawa and his brother converted a property into a guest house and the former continued to work on his paintings.

Return to India

Upon his return to India in 1971, he drew inspiration from Indian mythology and Sufi philosophy. Sticking to his customary palette of colours such as red, pink and violet, that are traditionally associated with India, Bawa created unique and vibrant paintings, sketches and drawings. Even though he is widely known for paintings, the artist himself considers drawing as his first love and also immensely enjoys sketching, which he credits as being the key behind his habit of working continuously.

Inspiration

Having spent several years in painting, Bawa returned to the joys of drawing later in his career, inspired by an exhibition of sketches by the great artist Michelangelo. Bawa’s subjects include figures of the deities Kali and Shiva, animals, nature, flute motifs and the idea of co-existence between man and animals.

Hobby

Bawa learnt to play the flute and also made the activity a large part of the scenes in his paintings. Often, he depicted Krishna with a flute, where his followers were dogs and not cows.

Major shows

During his stay abroad from 1967 to 1971, he held his first solo exhibition in London and Spain. His last solo shows were at the Nehru Centre and at galleries in New York in 2000, in Hong Kong (2002), as well as in London and New Delhi in 2005.

His works have also been part of group shows including Freedom 2008 at the Centre for International Modern Art (CIMA), Kolkata, in 2008; In Transit III, Berlin, in 2005; The Margi and the Desi, New Delhi, 2004; Four Contemporary Artists in New Delhi in 1998; Wounds at CIMA, Kolkata and the National Gallery of Modern Art (NGMA), New Delhi, in 1993; New York, in 1985; the Royal Academy, London, in 1982; and Hirshhorn Museum, Washington DC, in 1982. Exhibitions that included his work posthumously included Kalpana: Figurative Art in India presented by the Indian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR), London; Tracing Time in Mumbai and In Memorium at the NGMA in 2009.

In 1963, the painter was awarded the Sailoz Prize. Nearly four decades later, a Buddhadeb Dasgupta-directed film titled Meeting Manjit won the National Award for Best Documentary.

Personal life

He lived in Delhi with wife Sharda, son Ravi and daughter Bhavana. He died on December 29 2008. Many of his signature works are still celebrated and treasured throughout the world today.

Source: manjit-bawa.com, Wikipedia

INTERESTING FACTS

1. Manjit Bawa established a silkscreen workshop at the Garhi Studios of the Lalit Kala Akademi in New Delhi, achieving in his prints the same luminescent colours of his paintings.

2. He was awarded the Lalit Kala Akademi Award in 1980. He was feted during the first Bharat Bhavan Biennale in Bhopal (1986) and was honoured with the Dayawati Modi Annual Award in 2000.

3. Bawa credited five people for shaping his life as an artist — his elder brother who encouraged him to do the sketches and landscapes and gave him art materials; Abani Sen, who not only taught him how to draw but also showed him that behind great art is an attitude towards life; Sen’s son Ranjan, Jagdish Mehra, faculty member at the College of Art in Delhi and fellow artist J Swaminathan.

4. In the wake of the 1984 anti-Sikh riots in Delhi, he took part in peace marches and promoted communal harmony. It showed that apart from being a celebrated artist, Bawa was also a compassionate human being.