Important Notice

Satish Gujral’s artistic career spanned more than six decades to include works executed in different media and aesthetic sensibilities. Born in 1925 in Jhelum, present day Pakistan, he endured a tough childhood, permanently losing his hearing at the tender age of 8. His admission in the Mayo School in Lahore was a considerable shift where he learnt various skills like carpentry, clay moulding, wood carving, drawing, and design. He went on to... Satish Gujral’s artistic career spanned more than six decades to include works executed in different media and aesthetic sensibilities. Born in 1925 in Jhelum, present day Pakistan, he endured a tough childhood, permanently losing his hearing at the tender age of 8. His admission in the Mayo School in Lahore was a considerable shift where he learnt various skills like carpentry, clay moulding, wood carving, drawing, and design. He went on to pursue fine arts at the J J School of Arts in Mumbai but was curtailed by ill health and political upheaval.

Gujral witnessed the tumultuous partition of Punjab firsthand, and his early paintings of the 1950s were characterised by an Expressionist style, with figures expressing pain and agony rendered in a muted palette. He moved on to sculpture, undertook some architectural projects through the years and returned to painting in 1986. Undergoing several transitions in style and adopting different mediums, Gujral’s language in the 90s contrasted with that of his early works and were increasingly lyrical and colourful, the like of the present lot. Reflecting the artist’s mood, these works were done during a lighter time in life. “Man and beast, woman and bird, musicians and jugglers take centre stage. The focus is on the human figure, with its voluminous body and small head… Gujral has come a long distance from his early expression of fear and despair to a manifestation of unrestrained joy.” (Amrita Jhaveri, A Guide to 101 Modern and Contemporary Indian Artists, Mumbai: India Book House Pvt Ltd, 2005, p. 35)

Defining a later phase in Gujral’s artistic evolution, the present lot features two musicians appearing still while the background contradicts it with dynamism and rhythm. “In their dynamism these paintings portray human figures that deal with the vagaries of life situations locating their identities through masks, rituals or forms, which provide them their goal or reason to live.” (Dr. Seema Bawa, “Energy of the Sublime: Performance, Rituals and Unmasking Cultural Memories,” Ode to the Monumental, Mumbai: Saffronart, 2014, p. 71) The heavy impasto, textural quality, shaded figures, and highlights give the painting a sense of depth and a sculptural, relief like quality. The monumentality and heaviness of figures indicates Gujral’s most defining influences- David Alfaro Siqueiros and Diego Rivera. In 1952, Gujral won a scholarship to Mexico as an apprentice under Siqueiros and the inspiration was ingrained in his artistic expressions throughout his career.

Reflecting on Gujral’s career, Gayatri Sinha comments- “Retrospectively his large oeuvre emphasizes Gujral’s values as an artist privileging simultaneous and multiple forms of practice. He has allied with the concerns of a national art by building new alignments in third world practices, constituted of the ordinary as monumental. By embracing multiple forms of production Gujral has in fact engaged in most of the discursive issues within modernism, with what is now recognized as a characteristic affirmative heroism.” (Gayatri Sinha, “Satish Gujral,” Critical Collective, online)

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