Saturday, January 03, 2009

A Large-hearted Person

By Sahar Zaman with Sushant Mehta in New Delhi, "Manjit Bawa dies: The Sufi in art has gone" - CNN-IBN New Delhi, India

Tuesday, December 30, 2008

He was an artist who was known for his ice cream colours but there was always something very serene and peaceful about his figures.

And that's how 67-year-old Manjit Bawa left everyone on Monday morning - silently, after a cardiac arrest - as he lay in a coma that had struck him three years ago.

Born in 1941 in the Dhuri village of Punjab, Bawa rose to fame with his distinct style in fuguritive art, using clean lines, strong colours and flat tones - a reason why his works stood out from that of his contemporaries who concentrated on using subdued colours.

Art Impresario's Rajiv Sethi said, "He picked up what was the best in tradition. He moulded it to what is modern and made it his own and with it, he was able to reach out and become an icon."

Art Critic Alka Raghuvanshi added, "He was a great person, a large-hearted person. It was a very nice, enveloping feeling to know him. He was a very welcoming personality."

Despite having travelled across the world, Bawa's native Punjab was always close to his art. And that's where his paintings on the love songs of Heer Ranjha, Krishna legends and the poetry of the Sufi mystics like Bula Shah came from.

More than anything else, Manjit Bawa will be remembered as the Sufi within the art world.

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Saturday, January 03, 2009

A Large-hearted Person
By Sahar Zaman with Sushant Mehta in New Delhi, "Manjit Bawa dies: The Sufi in art has gone" - CNN-IBN New Delhi, India

Tuesday, December 30, 2008

He was an artist who was known for his ice cream colours but there was always something very serene and peaceful about his figures.

And that's how 67-year-old Manjit Bawa left everyone on Monday morning - silently, after a cardiac arrest - as he lay in a coma that had struck him three years ago.

Born in 1941 in the Dhuri village of Punjab, Bawa rose to fame with his distinct style in fuguritive art, using clean lines, strong colours and flat tones - a reason why his works stood out from that of his contemporaries who concentrated on using subdued colours.

Art Impresario's Rajiv Sethi said, "He picked up what was the best in tradition. He moulded it to what is modern and made it his own and with it, he was able to reach out and become an icon."

Art Critic Alka Raghuvanshi added, "He was a great person, a large-hearted person. It was a very nice, enveloping feeling to know him. He was a very welcoming personality."

Despite having travelled across the world, Bawa's native Punjab was always close to his art. And that's where his paintings on the love songs of Heer Ranjha, Krishna legends and the poetry of the Sufi mystics like Bula Shah came from.

More than anything else, Manjit Bawa will be remembered as the Sufi within the art world.

No comments: