Sikhs glory on canvas

The city is going to witness a rare exhibition of paintings by a diverse set of western artists depicting the Sikh community in all its glory and grandeur. The exhibition, titled Sikhs: An Occidental Romance, is showcased by The Hubris foundation which has brought 80 beautiful museum archival replicas from renowned European artists such as Alfred De Dreux, Emily Eden, Rudolf Swoboda, Edwin Lord Weeks, Prince Alexis Soltykoff, August Schoefft, William Carpenter and others, under one single roof.

“These western artists have painted the Sikhs during the 19th and 20th century. The paintings ( taken as a whole) manifest ‘affectionate admiration’ by the artist for his subject,” says Gautam Srivastava, the founder of The Hubris Foundations.

It was about five years ago, while the foundation was researching Western art on India, that they stumbled upon an abnormality. “We noticed that there were an unexpected number of paintings, the subjects of which were Sikhs. We thought we were on to something so we launched a worldwide search to find all the Sikhs related western art that was out there. This was an abnormality and we needed to understand what caused it. Another similar abnormality is the western art on Banares. In a few years from now we would like to exhibit that as well,” says Srivastava.” 

The team found compelling evidence that the Sikh community was disproportionately represented in western art on India especially in the latter part of 19th and the early part of the 20th century. “Another aspect was that the portfolio had a rich diversity of artists and styles and that there was a consistency in the artist’s disposition to his subject – one of affectionate admiration. That is why we chose to title this exhibition: The Sikh - An Occidental Romance,” adds he.

In his 20 year long fascination with occidental artists, who painted India and its people, Srivastava often found himself wondering why the Sikhs receive near-universal admiration from these magnificent wielders of the paint brush.

He believes it comes from, that most beautiful of all intoxicants, Romance. Elaborating further, he says, “Given the small minority Sikh’s form of our population, the western artworks on them is disproportionate both in terms of the number of paintings and in terms of the mood of these works. We questioned why this phenomenon occurred and answers it by saying that the Sikh’s enchanted the western artist and these paintings represent the artist’s response to that enchantment. In short the fruits of the romance.”

Like his fascination for distortions and abnormalities in Western artworks on India, the Hubris foundation is a bunch of people obsessed with Western art on India.” We like to research and exhibit it to India because most Indians do not have access to or understanding of such artworks. We do this for free,another abnormality,” says he.The exhibition starts from  April 13 to 18, 11 am to 7 pm at Aifacs Gallery, 1 Rafi Marg