About

He had an inner sense of right and wrong, something that was inherent in him. He felt the causes of the oppressed and the downtrodden had to be propagated for the world to know and see. For him, the suffering endured by the poor, the powerless and the downtrodden, needed a voice… something his artistic renderings could convey. His works on religious conflicts, the Holocaust and the horrors perpetuated by the Nazis against the Jews, the inhumanity of the Apartheid system, etc., are a few examples of his portrayals against injustice, and the suffering the subjugated have had to endure.

“To strive for greater equality is to invariably strive for more democracy”, a critic interviewed in his film “Amar Nath Sehgal – A Portrait”, says. Clearly, in that context, my father was a “political” man. But it seems such thoughts in him were always coloured by his sense of fairness and compassion. With a gentle pleading for love; an appeal for respect of another human being, he formulated his message. He practiced his religious beliefs, and recognised the importance of freedom of worship. He felt that everyone had a right to hold their faith in God dear. Yet, he continually asserted that the underlying universal truth, that “He is One”, is enshrined in all great scriptures… a lesson for all humanity. He remained committed to this ideal throughout his life. His work “Iswar Allah tere nam” at the Studio, depicts this lifelong conviction.

He was my father, someone I loved and knew well. I spent a lot of alone time with him over the years, while we resided together in Europe and the United States. I learnt much from him. I admired his sense of purpose and his non-materialistic motivations. I was invariably impressed by his inner sources of inspiration. He was an incessant hard worker, contending with the “protocols of the establishment”, always trying to further his work and its inherent messages. He inspired me to see many things his way. We would talk about items of mutual relevance, and I would often disagree and resist. At times, I would try hard to change his mind. But he would gently hold sway, and instil a simplistic, yet appealing thought in my mind; slowly persuading me to start seeing things his way.

Both, my brother Rajan and I, are immensely proud of him, and his creative work. The Studio will house most of our personal collection of his art. We hope, in addition to propagating his works, it will also help inspire beholders to know his ideals… his vision of life…

Whereas all my friends’ fathers went to their offices, clad in suits and ties, my father with his long untamed locks and dreamy eyes would be lost in his own world within the studio where he was both accessible yet remote, driven by a creative energy unfathomable to me! As I grew older, the mundane world of school and college took over, friends and activities distracted me and the studio became a more distant place but the vision of my father working furiously, passionately with his clay, surrounded by tools and paints, remained with me. Although he spoke little of his life's tribulations, I would often wonder what had made him change paths from a being a metallurgical engineer to stowing away on a ship for the US to study art at New York Univeristy ! Our lives would have been more comfortable if he had walked the conventional path. Money was a challenge and he had to travel the world to find collectors for his works and keep the kitchen fires burning. My decision to go into finance was perhaps my way of choosing a more secure and settled life! While I left home at the age of 21 to pursue my career in different countries, my father stayed true to his first love, the creative muse housed in his studio.

Years later, at his passing away I found that he had bequeathed his studio to me, and the collection of his art work jointly to my brother and myself! I was deeply touched but it took some time for me to comprehend the immense responsibility that I had been given. Whenever I visited the studio, his presence was palpable. The tools, the innumerable sketchbooks, the half used pastels seemed to speak to me. I was sucked into their magic! It was as if my father knew that through the studio, I would be able to always have a connection with him that transcended the physical!

The renovation of the studio was a project waiting to happen ever since the day it was willed to me. Father knew that even as a child, I loved the adventure and excitement of projects, though somewhere in my preoccupation as a career banker, that side of me had got lost! It took me a few years to gather the nerve to embark on the renovation and it would be an understatement to say that I was overwhelmed by the sheer magnitude of the task, given the vast number of sculptures, paintings, tapestries and poetry that needed to be taken care of! I was overcome with self doubt from time to time – would I be able to do justice to his legacy – but soldiered on with the conviction that since he had entrusted me with the task, he must have been confident of my ability and commitment to be the custodian and taking care of the immense body of his artwork. It has since become much more than just a responsibility. It has been a labour of love and has allowed me to reacquaint myself with the man that was my father, his innermost thoughts, ideas, values as expressed though his works.

The first is a two year journey full of intense moments: of harrowing self doubts, arguments with self, spurts of love, of being with the other with bouts of frustrations, delightful discoveries, passionate dialogues and discussions on art and those ever elusive moments of peace and delight when one knows oneself through the other more intimately. This was and still continues to be my story as an archivist and curator at the archives and museum of the artist, Amar Nath Sehgal.

The second one was a sixty year long story of reconciliation: the life and art of the Indian modern artist, Amar Nath Sehgal, a man in constant struggle for nearly six decades with the memories of Partition. Because true creative expression does not come easy. It starts with a wandering into the outside world that gradually turns inwards. The creative process for such an artist is not easy. He has to cleave through layers of experiences, memories and emotions, of ingrained training in seeing, thinking and working patterns and come to terms with the fact that one truly does not know, that one has to unlearn all that was taught, unsee all that was seen and rediscover the essence: the true meaning of existence and once found, celebrate it.

Prying Into The Archives Such cognizant art practices are never easy when challenged by materiality. For Amar Nath Sehgal, the challenges of media mirrored his grappling with his inner turmoil and tensions. He explains his creative conceptual convictions: “The problem concerning the sculptor is chiefly to construct in material the form that conveys a mood, a feeling or an attitude. But when the feelings are not clear and well defined, when they lie dormant in the conscious mind, it is through hard and concentrated efforts that they are diagnosed and their meaning properly understood.”

He treated the material and the resulting form as means of reconciliation with his past: a spiraling journey cutting inwards and onwards; exhuming and horizontal, where memories were revisited and renegotiated everyday to break open the existing layer of creative expression, to delve deeper and grab onto the next layer to allow a purer and cleaner understanding of the past to take form. The resulting artwork had a strong rhythm and fluidity; as if Time flowed through the medium, eroding the jagged and hard edges of memories only to leave behind glistening forms with smooth lines retelling the story of mankind. This was the artistic parcours of the rtist-sculptor-poet, Amar Nath Sehgal.

The Amar Nath Sehgal Archives is an on-going project to document the life and art of the modern master. The Amar Nath Sehgal-Delhi Chapter initiative is perhaps the first of its kind in the country. The museum in its initial efforts to document the artworks of the artist under its website initiative, Collector’s Space came across a sizable number of artworks in public spaces in the Delhi-NCR region.

What seemed like a trivial act of reaching out to public and private institution resulted in months of communications, dialogues and navigating through unchartered territories. The lengthy yet fruitful process of reaching out to the public institutions required an in-depth study of the archival material pertaining to the artworks, the artist’s relationship with the concerned institutions and the politics of that era. The team also delved into artist’s copyright laws, governing laws of Indian public institutions and a subsequent documentation of the complete process that has led to the conception of this catalogue.

A result of months of labour not only with the archives but also restoration of the artworks and continuous dialogues with the institutions, the catalogue hopes to shed light on the extensive work that goes behind restoring and bringing into light any historical treasure. This is the first step towards creating a raisonné on public installations of the Indian modern master. We continue to work towards locating and documenting sculptures of the artist in Indian and international collections.