Manohar Kaul

BHAGWAN KAPOOR
By MANOHAR KAUL
Roopa-Lekha Magazine

Bhagwan Kapoor (b. 1935) joined the J.J. School of Art, Bombay, in 1954 as an eager student and took his Diploma in 1958 with top honours, receiving the Usha Deshmukh Gold Medal and Fellowship. Both during his studentship and immediate post-school career, Bhagwan Kapoor participated in a number of exhibitions held by various art academies and societies in the country from 1958 to 1961. He was awarded three Gold Medals by the Academy of Fine Arts, Calcutta, two prizes by the Hyderabad Art Society, two prizes and a Silver Medal by the Bombay Art Society, two prizes by the All India Fine Arts & Crafts Society, Delhi, and a Rs. 1000/- award by the Lalit Kala Akademi, Delhi. He also received first prize of Rs. 1500/- at the mural painting competition organised by the Tagore Centenary Committee, Hyderabad, and a prize by the Mahakavi Kalidasa Art Exhibition. He has also freely participated in several international art exhibitions organised by various cultural societies as well as the All India Fine Arts & Crafts Society. It was, however, his one-man shows, held between October 1960 and 1962 at Bombay, Delhi, and Calcutta, that brought his genius to limelight. The maturity and erudition evidenced at these shows is reflected in his brilliant synthesis of the symbolism underlying old Gujarati miniatures, Jain palmleaf manuscripts, and Sindhi folklore. From such sources he has well succeeded in picking qualities and elements highly valued in modern art—such as simplicity, directness, boldness, harsh straight and tame lines or pliant curves, crude but robust stylization, distortion, exaggeration, architectonic structural designs, and doll-like rigid profiles. Decorative character is manifest in most of his paintings, especially those drawn in tempera and oils. But his colours are mostly dull and toned down, to give a sober lyrical rhythm to his pliant line. His composition is rich in design, though simplicity is kept prominent in the architectonic background. Prototypes of figures—like big round almond eyes, pouted mouths, and other exaggerations—are directly borrowed from the old traditions, while drapery, jewellery, and other ornamental accessories have been taken from life, indicating the place and society delineated. Judging from what he has put forth in the brief span of about four years past, Bhagwan Kapoor deserves to be ranked among the promising young artists of today who refuse to be classified into schools. Art is now no longer subservient to purely local, regional, or national traditions, and painters everywhere are striving to abstract the universal and primeval values embedded in the heritage from the past. Picasso found his inspiration in Negro sculpture, Paul Klee in the anatomy of plants and drawings of a child, and Jamini Roy in the folk art of rural Bengal. And so did Almelkar, Hebbar, Raval, and a host of other modern painters—in whose footsteps Bhagwan Kapoor seeks to tread. His performance is to be judged from the cosmopolitan angle, and not the limited perspective of rural Saurashtra tradition and life, which were the source of his inspiration. I am inclined to believe that his recent paintings have given us just a glimpse of his personality. But what is seen is imbued with a vitality which holds enough promise to acquire full form and stature.