Sobha Singh (painter)

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Sobha Singh

Sir Sobha Singh (1901-1986) is arguably the most well known contemporary painter Punjab has ever produced.

1 Early life
2 Education and training
3 Painting
4 Trivia
5 External links

[edit] Early life

He was born on 29 November 1901 in a Ramgarhia Sikh family in Sri Hargobindpur, Gurdaspur district of Punjab. His father, Deva Singh, was in the Indian cavalry.

[edit] Education and training

At age 15, Sobha Singh entered the Industrial School at Amritsar for a one-year course in art and craft. He joined the British Indian army as a draughtsman and served in Baghdad, Mesopotamia (now Iraq ) . He left the army to pursue painting. In 1949 he settled down in Andretta, a remote and then little-known place in the Kangra valley, beginning his career as a painter.

[edit] Painting

His paintings of Sohni Mahiwal and Heer Ranjha were very popular, his series on the Sikh guru's have dominated to an extent that his paintings dominate the public's perception associated with Guru Nanak and Guru Gobind Singh.

The portrait he made in honour of the 500th birth anniversary of Guru Nanak in 1969 is the one most people believe to be the visage of Guru Nanak. Sobha Singh painted pictures of other Gurus as well Guru Amar Das, Guru Tegh Bahadur and Guru Har Krishan.

His murals are displayed in the art gallery of Indian Parliament House in New Delhi. The panel depicting the evolution of Sikh history features Guru Nanak with Bala and Mardana on one side; and Guru Gobind Singh in meditation on the other. Sobha Singh also dabbled in sculpture, and did the busts of some eminent Punjabis such as M.S. Randhawa, Prithviraj Kapoor and Nirmal Chandra, and an incomplete head-study of the Punjabi poetessAmrita Pritam. The originals of his works are displayed in his studio at Andretta.

Sobha Singh died in Chandigarh on 21 August 1986.