A journalist, political activist, painter, and the man who discovered Jangarh Singh Shyam — J Swaminathan

June 21, On This Day

Credited with the discovery of legendary Gond tribal artist from Madhya Pradesh, Jangarh Singh Shyam, Jagdish Swaminathan — commonly known as J Swaminathan — was a renowned Indian artist, painter, poet and writer in his own right, and also a member of the Communist Party of India.

Swaminathan was born in Shimla on June 21, 1928.

In the course of his career, he was a magazine editor, political activist, and then started training under artists like Sailoz Mukherjee and Bhabesh Chandra Sanyal. At one point, he even quit art, unable to juggle his many commitments.

But luckily for the art world, Swaminathan joined the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw in 1957. By the end of the 1960s, he had left journalism to take up art full-time.

Swaminathan was one of 12 co-founders of the short-lived artist group \”GROUP 1890\” founded in Bhavnagar, Gujarat, in 1962. Its other members included Ghulam Mohammed Sheikh, Eric Bowen, and Jyoti Bhatt.

One of Swaminathan’s most stellar contributions was his active aid of vernacular painters from tribes such as Gond and Bhil to gain international recognition. In the course of this commitment, he discovered young Gond artist Jangarh Singh Shyam painting on the mud walls of his house in 1981 — the latter went on to become the first known modern and internationally renowned Gond artist.

The Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts says he was \”an epitome of versatility and depth on moving from outer to inner – a search for rediscovery\”.

Swaminathan is known to have contemplated that younger generations should break fresh grounds, otherwise they would end up just imitating the elders.

Of his artworks, it is written that they had a \”captivating simplicity\”, with vivid imagery, bright hues, geometry, symbolism, probing the relation of colour to space. The bird motif is one that was frequently viewed and beloved in his paintings.

Swaminathan passed away in 1994 at the age of 66.