HAKUSHAH

Haku Shah [1934] decorated with Padmashree in 1999 is a multifaceted personality wearing many hats. He is not only an acclaimed artist but also a scholar, teacher and an anthropologist. His interest in folk and tribal traditions of India has made him an authority on the subject, an incisive predilection that also inflects in his art. He has set up a folk art museum in Ahmedabad. For Shah, engagement with art, gestures towards social activism collaborating with singers and musicians to advocate peace through image and song. Says, Haku Shah, “My work looks at the love of human life; it draws from the poetry of Tagore, Rumi and Kabir.” His works thus articulates expressions through engagement with naive folk art tradition. The simplicity of his forms and the flat areas of his colours impart absolute simplicity that is almost Gandhian in ideology. The saliency of his signature is the earthy colours judiciously juxtaposed; the planar dimension of his forms and the simple composition that conveys his artistic concerns in a naive manner. His works are an interface between knowledge, folk traditions, urban practices, storytelling and philosophy. These varied dimensions enrich his art, yet astoundingly the magical simplicity of his artistic expressions completely belies the epistemological and ontological approach.