ART THAT BREATHES

Celebrating the many detours of artist Satish Gujral

- BY SHUBHANGI SHAH

After a swimming accident on the river Lidder in Kashmir left an eight-year-old Satish Gujral deaf, he was taken to a school for the disabled.

He refused to enrol. It was the first of many conventional paths Gujral would later reject. With formal learning difficult, his father handed him a pencil and paper to see if art might be something he could take to. He did, resulting in a legendary career that progressed from painting and sculpture to murals and, eventually, architecture.

Born in Jhelum, now in Pakistan, on December 25, 1925, Gujral would have turned 100 last December (he died in 2020). His centenary is being marked by a major retrospective at Delhi's National Gallery of Modern Art, talks and shows across platforms like the Jaipur Literature Festival and India Art Fair, the reissue of his autobiography, and, most significantly, the opening of the iconic Gujral House in Delhi to the public.

A LIVING STUDIO

The house Gujral built for himself in Lajpat Nagar rejects conventional spatial logic, the shifts in level and structure rendering it a crafted, living form. When he began building it with architect Raj Rewal in the late 1960s, Gujral envisioned it as a living studio. “He wanted to show people how art should be displayed and perceived,” says his son, architect Mohit Gujral. “That required volume and scale.”

The house remained both his residence and studio for the rest of his life. Its rooms were never fixed. “They kept changing according to his moods and needs,” says Mohit. The Gujral House, Mohit says, will be part museum, housing his works, but also “a space with rotating displays and conversations aligned with his beliefs, constantly evolving and speaking to future generations”.

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