The painter, sculptor, and architect Satish Gujral, whose artistic practice sweeps across the broadest course of independent India, died ag...
The painter, sculptor, and architect Satish Gujral, whose artistic practice sweeps across the broadest course of independent India, died aged 94 on March 26.
Gujral was born in Jhelum, undivided Punjab, in 1925, one of the four children of lawyer Avtar Narain and Pushpa Gujral who survived into adulthood. At the age of eight, a series of medical complications following an episode of near-drowning led him to lose his hearing, sending him into the impermeable silence that would define his entire life and artistic practice. The unhappy fact of having to carry a slate and chalk around (as a makeshift means of communication) uncovered, by sheer chance, his deftness with drawing hat he chose to pursue.
With the strong encouragement and support of his family he embarked into an education in fine arts, beginning at Mayo College of Arts in Lahore before proceeding to Sir JJ School of Art in erstwhile Bombay, where he remained until 1947, leaving before the completion of his degree. It was Gujral’s involvement in the events of Independence that changed the course of his life. He observed at close quarters the decision to Partition India, as he accompanied his father (who was active in the freedom movement) to...
