THE ADVENTURES OF SATISH GUJRAL

T is a painting of India’s first Prime Minister, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru.

- PANKIL JHAJHRIA

As usual, he wears his white Gandhi topi, with a pink rose tucked into his jacket.But the familiar beaming expression is absent. Instead, Nehru appears weary and despondent, seated with his hands clasped in a brooding posture — burdened, it seems, by the weight of building a new nation. The portrait, painted by Satish Gujral in 1957, is an example of how the artist dealt with the emotional and political temper of his time. It is among the works on view at the National Gallery of Modern Art (NGMA), New Delhi, as part of ‘Satish Gujral 100: The Centennial Exhibition’, on display till March 30.

Organised to mark Gujral’s birth centenary, the show features various paintings, sculptures, drawings, murals, architectural material, and personal objects from public and private collections.

The beginnings

Gujral was born in 1925 in Jhelum, now in Pakistan. At the age of eight, a near-drowning accident followed by excessive anaesthesia left him hearing-impaired, with only a child’s grasp of Urdu and Punjabi. However, the accident increased his dependence on visual expression and refined his visual awareness.

He studied art at the Mayo School of Art in Lahore and then the Sir J.J. School of Art in Bombay. He was one of the modern masters of his time, which included artists like V.S. Gaitonde, M.F Husain, Tyeb Mehta, and Krishen Khanna.