A year of tearful farewells

A tribute to eminent artists we lost last year.

In a long and distinguished career, Vivan Sundaram came to be known both for his art and activism. When he passed away in Delhi on March 29, 2023, aged 79, well-known painter Sudhir Patwardhan reminisced: “Vivan stood steadfast for a committed engagement with the complex mechanisms of society and at the same time the praxes of contemporary art. His passing is a great loss for the art world and more widely, for the cultural landscape of the country.”

Born in Shimla in 1943 to Indian civil servant Kalyan Sundaram and Indira Sher-Gil, sister of noted artist Amrita Sher-Gil, Sundaram graduated in art from the Maharaja Sayajirao University in Baroda (1961–65) before completing post-graduation from the Slade School of Art, London (1966–68). A prolific artist, he experimented in diverse mediums such as painting, sculpture, printmaking, photography, installation, photo-montages, and video art, and produced several series of evocative works.

Among the many works still remembered by artlovers are his ‘Heights of Machu Pichu’ (1972), a set of ink drawings inspired by verses from Pablo Neruda's poem; ‘Engine Oil and Charcoal Drawings’ (1991) reflecting the horrors of the Gulf War; 'Memorial' (1993) responding to the destruction of the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya and its violent aftermath; 'Structures of Memory: Modern Bengal' (1998) a monumental site-specific installation at the Victoria Memorial, Calcutta; and 'Re-take of Amrita' (2001-02) a video project manipulating photographs of Amrita Sher-Gil captured by his grandfather Umrao Singh.

Critics and historians have observed how Vivan’s works showed ceaseless experimentation with new mediums, materials and forms; how they were loaded with political and historical references; how they repeatedly dealt with the ideas of wreckage, journeys, conflict, and dislocation; and how they broke the mould of painting and established a multimedia practice.

An originator and organiser of projects with different artists, art groups, and collectives, Vivan held that connecting with people from different disciplines was vital for his own practice. He also believed ‘in responding to the environment, to the changed aesthetic, even a new political situation.’ Winner of the Asia Arts Vanguard Award, Sundaram had successful solo shows in many Indian cities, as well as in London, Paris, Amsterdam, Budapest, Copenhagen, New York, among others.

In his final days, Vivan suffered a brain haemorrhage and was hospitalised in Delhi in early March. His death was mourned by artists and collectors across the country. Art critic Holland Cotter writing in The New York Times recalled how Vivan was widely credited with spearheading a transition in modern and contemporary Indian art from European-inspired abstract painting to multimedia forms addressing social and political realities in his country; and how he was much admired by his colleagues both for his formal adventurousness and his philosophical consistency.

A much-admired and sought-after scholar and art historian, Brijinder Nath Goswamy, passed away on November 17, 2023, aged 90. Recipient of the Padma Shri and the Padma Bhushan, Prof. Goswamy brought to life many secreted concepts and perceptive theories of art, culture and history through intricately woven stories, writings, and narrations.

“He was a scholar nonpareil, who spoke and wrote on Indian art with a felicity prompted as though by Saraswati, the goddess of learning sitting on his tongue and fingertips, leaving his audience and readers spellbound,” recalled eminent artist and teacher Gulammohammed Sheikh. “Scholarship sat lightly on his broad shoulders. No genre of painting, ranging from the classical to the folk or from traditional art to the modern, remained beyond his grasp. He could engage with all of these with equal ease and expertise … His penetrating eye would uncover a hidden secret in a tiny detail sitting in the corner of a painting … Besides being a scholar of great eminence, he was a rasika, a shaukeen, a true connoisseur whose erudition was steeped in empathy.”

Born in Sargodha, now in Pakistan, in 1933, Goswamy had a stint in the Indian Administrative Service before moving to history and research. Throughout his life, he asserted the importance of visual literacy and taught how to read the language of Indian paintings, and how to obtain all the riches that resided within. “It is the task of the art historian to bring the reader or the viewer in close context with what he is looking at.”

Goswamy was also instrumental in pulling the classical painters from the shadows and placing them and their families under the spotlight. “Instead of making them part of a school or system, he said that these were thinking people, who elected to invest certain ideas in their artwork,” recalls art historian and curator Naman Ahuja. “He made us think of artists — who today might be considered socially low-caste, non-Brahmanical — and their pedagogy, production methods, and more, and created a subaltern history without calling it any of those fancy words.”

A prolific writer, Goswamy authored over 20 books on art and culture. His penetrating research and commentary on Nainsukh, one of the most prolific and original painters of the Pahari school, is considered unique and pathbreaking. His lavishly illustrated book The Spirit of Indian Painting: Close Encounters with 101 Great Works (2014) is hailed as a masterpiece and ‘one of the greatest books on Indian art’.

For a master who popularised ways of seeing and appreciating art in many ways, Goswamy prided having not attended a single class in art history. “I am completely self-taught — which comes with its advantages and disadvantages — but I have thoroughly enjoyed what I have done so far,” he once said.

Besides Sundaram and Goswamy, the country lost a host of other important artists. Among them were painter Lalitha Lajmi (17 October 1932 – 13 February 2023); art critic and trade unionist Suneet Chopra (24 December 1941 – 4 April 2023); photographer and filmmaker Navroze Contractor (1944 - 2023); doctor turned poet and painter Gieve Patel (18 August 1940 – 3 November 2023); Bangalore-based painter BKS Varma (5 September 1948 – 6 February 2023) and S Krishnappa (1945-2023).