Important Notice

Jangarh Singh Shyam is synonymous with Gond art, so much so, that Udayan Vajpeyi, in his essay, "From Music to Painting," proposes that the art be called Jangarh Kalam, or Jangarh style. (Sathyapal ed., Native Art of India, Thrissur: Kerala Lalithakala Akademi, 2011, p. 33) Hailing from the forests of Mandala, Shyam rose to fame after a chance encounter with modernist Jagdish Swaminathan in the 1980s. Swaminathan, who was leading... Jangarh Singh Shyam is synonymous with Gond art, so much so, that Udayan Vajpeyi, in his essay, "From Music to Painting," proposes that the art be called Jangarh Kalam, or Jangarh style. (Sathyapal ed., Native Art of India, Thrissur: Kerala Lalithakala Akademi, 2011, p. 33) Hailing from the forests of Mandala, Shyam rose to fame after a chance encounter with modernist Jagdish Swaminathan in the 1980s. Swaminathan, who was leading an Indian collective on a study tour with the aim of creating a collection of tribal art in Bhopal, came across the adorned walls of Shyam's home. Upon enquiring, they met Shyam-only a teenager at the time, but with a striking style of painting. Swaminathan took Shyam on as his protege, bringing him to the Roopankar Museum in Bhopal, where he learned to transfer his art from walls to paper. He created a series of works on paper and canvas, which are on display at Bharat Bhavan today.

As per the Gond art tradition, Shyam's art was based on the deities and divinities of the Gond tribe, and the animist culture of worship surrounding them. Bridging the boundaries between man, nature and the divine, Gond art motifs often include fantastical creatures and exuberant plant forms, which emerge in Shyam's works as well. Suspended in space, he rendered these like silhouettes creating the effect of shadow puppets, with pointillist dots and hatched lines. The inspiration for using fine dots comes from the Gond tribe, in which the shamans go into a trance and imagine that the particles of their bodies disperse into space to join with those of spirits to form other beings.

The present lot demonstrates Shyam's ability to take the Gond tradition into the modern age. He worked in several mediums and discovered a new approach every time, while still retaining the magical quality of the art that was once painted only on the walls of village homes.

In 2010, the Musee du quai Branly in Paris held an exhibition called Other Masters of India, which carried large works on papers by Shyam from the later 1980s and early 1990s. He passed away in 2001, in his early forties, and left behind a vibrant legacy which is carried on by the artists he trained and encouraged during his lifetime.

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