HIMMAT SHAH – India’s Living Van Gogh
Today Himmat celebrates his 81st
birthday
May he go bouncing
on to a century and like the great Japanese artist Hokusai keep on belting out
more n more great art.
Himmat Shah's studio was for several years at the Lalit Kala Akademi’s Garhi Artists Studios complex in New Delhi. I joined the Printmaking studio after completing B.F.A. from Delhi College of Art and met Himmat, one of the greatest living genius of India... i compare him to my all time fav Van Gogh...thankfully he has not had such a difficult life
Below I give some excerpts from @myHimmatDiary, and some
pix of his works
Today Himmat Shah lives and works in Jaipur
Please check out more of his artworks and his fab book
“Terracotta” on his website www.himmatshah.com
Garhi Artists
Studios 1980’s
My first encounter
with Himmat Shah
Huge wooden door coloured silver....ajar....Himmat in his
lounge chair with his inveterate cap and little boy grin...its open house for
all..
For me - who could only admire my fav’s like Matisse, Paul
Klee, Jean Arp, Noguchi, Archipenko, Miro through books - a Pandora’s box
thrown open.....what works of genius! an enthralling world of sculptures,
murals, prints, drawings...the mysterious, the unsaid, the abstract has always
appealed to me the most...and Himmat’s work is all that and more...
Garhi
Artists Studios
What does Cabbage
have to do with Creativity?
I worked in the Printmaking Studio. My mom came to visit
me.
She passed a studio with the large door wide open.
Her reaction “why on
earth was a man slicing cabbage in there...
surely there should be an artist
working at his art?”
That man – Himmat Shah was slicing cabbage to make delicious gujarati khichdi for all of us young artists who often floated into Himmat's studio for a free meal.
For me (my mom an excellent cook always gave me a delicious
lunch dabba) it was the sheer, ethereal joy
of enjoying Himmat’s genius – and listening to his riveting musings.
By the way Himmat thought my mom was very beautiful with
her flawless skin and doe eyes. I agree but lament that I have not been gifted her beauty
Triveni
Kala Sangam
My first Art
Exhibition of Etchings
Himmat came to the opening of my very first art exhibition.
I was honoured...such a senior artist. My etchings were absurdly abstract and
most people thought I was off my rocker...they thought the same about my
heavily ethnic apparel too...which hardly anybody knew about then....now its
available on the streets of Lajpat Nagar market and every Tom, Dick or Harry
rather every Timsy, Dolly or Harpreet are wearing...sorry for the digression...
Himmat asked me if I would give him one of my etchings
titled Amobae !!!! speechless I
dumbly nodded my head
Himmat’s
house
“We are all
Artists”
Post a wonderful time at the Delhi Book Fair, where Himmat
managed to beat us in picking up the best Art books, we invited ourselves over
for dinner. The cook entertained us with an impromptu “Magic show”. When we
lauded his talent – he informed us “everybody in this house is an artist” on
which Himmat guffawed – the cook had clubbed himself in the same genius as Himmat
Coffee
Home, Connaught Place 1980’s
A frisson up my
spine
Deep winter in New Delhi...dusk...Coffee Home spilling over
with people, dosas, sambhar, idlis, tea (not necessarily coffee). I feel a
frisson up my spine...there is a presence – a benign presence...i look up...its
Himmat in his Himmat cap and husky phiran quietly standing beside my table,
looking down at me.
Thanks to taking up a full-time job I had discontinued
going to Garhi, this chance encounter with Himmat was so special
Getting
Married is so Great
Maybe I should get
married several more times....:-)
No doubt i am blessed with a great spouse
but one of the
best perks possible of marriage –
Himmat gifted us his most fab sculpture!
now now stop being greedy...
