Satwant Singh (Painter, Cartoonist, Caricaturist, Illustrator)
was conferred with
Punjab Lalit Kala Akademi Sanmaan
Instituted by
Punjab Lalit Kala Akademi
by Shri Atul Dodiya, well known artist
at Punjab Kala Bhawan
Sector 16 B, Chandigarh
on 5th April 2019
From right to left: Diwan Manna, artist and President, Punjab Lalit Kala Akademi, Atu Dodiya, artist and Chief Guest, Satwant Singh, artist being conferred with Punjab Lalit Kala Akademi Sanmaan and Dr. B N Goswamy, art historian.
From right to left: Dr. Iqbal Kaur Judge, Diwan Manna, artist and President, Punjab Lalit Kala Akademi, Atu Dodiya, artist and Chief Guest, Satwant Singh, artist being conferred with Punjab Lalit Kala Akademi Sanmaan and Dr. B N Goswamy, art historian.
From right to left: Diwan Manna, artist and President, Punjab Lalit Kala Akademi, Atu Dodiya, artist and Chief Guest, Satwant Singh, artist being conferred with Punjab Lalit Kala Akademi Sanmaan and Dr. B N Goswamy, art historian.
Does the place one is born in, and the parents one has, influence one’s own life trajectory?
In artist Satwant Singh’s case, the answer is clearly ‘yes’. Born in Shimla in 1948, the deep dark woods, the winds whispering through the tall deodars and pines triggered his imagination in his early childhood, leading him to create hundred of drawings depicting trees, mountains, brooks and ever-changing skyscapes. His father who was a lover of literature and music encouraged the creative streak in his son.
At the age of 14, he had a group show with American artist Mary Bastiani at Portland, USA, and at 16, he held a solo show at Gaiety Theatre, Shimla. Soon after, he enrolled for the Applied Arts Course at Govt. College of Art in Chandigarh, and then went on to teach art at GCCIW, Chandigarh from where he retired as Head, Design faculty. He was also a visiting faculty at Chandigarh College of Architecture for several years.
Painter, sculptor, muralist, cartoonist, illustrator and poet, Satwant Singh has held more than 65 solo shows and has participated in more than 400 art exhibitions in India and abroad. His works are inhabited by the fecundity of animal life coupled with a Freudian sensibility towards human evolution. Chirping birds, leisurely roaming goats, sheep, horses, bulls, owls, mermaids as well as half–animal, half-human forms portray the circle of life where predators and prey are engaged in daily combat as the world maintains its mythical, mysterious balancing act of truth and mystery.
Satwant Singh has worked for Indian Express, Chandigarh and for several other national dailies and fortnightly magazines of repute such as The Week, Sunday Indian, Advance, Pixie, The Daily Sunshine, The Voice of Medicos and Jagriti. He has illustrated more than 350 books, comics, journals and magazines, designed hundreds of logos for well known organisations, and done large murals for his clients. His works are in the collections of many art galleries, museums, art academies, cultural centres and institutions and in private collections in India, U.K., USA, France, Fiji Islands, Canada, Mauritius, Australia, Thailand and Japan.
He has been awarded a number of prestigious prizes and honours from various art organizations including two National Awards in Children’s Literature and Book Illustration in 1999 by NCERT and NBT. From the Punjab Lalit Kala Akademi’s award in 1972 to an award at Bangkok International Triennale of Print making and Drawings and the Lifetime Achievement award by Suksham Sparsh, Chandigarh in 2011, and most recently the M.F.Husain National award in Drawing by Prafulla Dahanukar Art Foundation, Mumbai, in 2018, Satwant Singh continues to be honoured for his contributions to the world of art.
Punjab Lalit Kala Akademi feels honoured in conferring the Punjab Lalit Kala Akademi Sanmaan upon Shri Satwant Singh.