Manjit Bawa (1941 – 29 December 2008), born in Dhuri, Punjab, India, was an Indian painter.
He taught me to revere the figurative at a time when the entire scene was leaning in favor of the abstract.
Without that initial training I could never have been able to distort forms and create the stylization you see in my work today," recalls Bawa.
"I had been brought up on stories from the Mahabharat, the Ramayan, and the Puranas (Hindu mythological and sociological texts), on the poetry of Waris Shah (a Punjabi poet) and readings from the Guru Granth Sahib (holy book of the Sikhs)," he says.
[4] Manjit Bawa's canvases are distinguishable in their colors - the ochre of sunflowers, the green of the paddy fields, the red of the sun, the blue of the mountain sky.
He was one of the first painters to break out of the dominant grays and browns and opted for more traditionally Indian colors like pinks, reds and violet.
Indian gods Kali and Shiva, whom Bawa considers as "icons of my country", also figure prominently in his paintings.
Besides these, figures of Kali and Shiva dominate Bawa's canvases; "they are the icons of my country," he feels.
The painter has been surrounded by controversies in his life as an artist, the most recent one being accused of forgery by his assistant.