Jaipur will miss the spirit that soared, and touched so many lives.

Saying Goodbye to Surendra Pal Joshi

The artist community mourns the loss of Surendra Pal Joshi, the man who had impressed us all with his experimentation and adventure in his artistic practice. He inspired by doing: never content with traditional imagery or material, he constantly strived for the new, the quirky, and the imaginative. A friendship of over a decade I knew Surendra Pal Joshi to be a soft spoken person, a conscientious teacher, a bearded, long haired persona full of mirth and chat.

Originally from Uttarakhand, he studied art in Lucknow but Jaipur was his adopted home. Shaping young artists for two decades at the Rajasthan School of Art, Jaipur, he also continued his art practice for over thirty years. He created multi-dimensional art, working with paintings, sculptures, installations and videos using light and sound. He was a contemporary artist dealing with contemporary themes.

Arguably his most memorable work was a massive abstract installation titled Paani, a helicopter and a helmet made from safety pins. This was in response to the rescue efforts he witnessed during the devastating floods of Kedarnath and Gangotri in 2013. Travelling the ravaged mountainous terrain, he recorded his impressions in form of sketches, figures and colours. Coming back to his Jaipur studio, which he referred to as ‘Factory of Art’, he spent a year building an eight-foot helicopter, using approximately 1 lakh safety pins, with steel wire as its structure. He had observed the chopper as an essential part of search and rescue operations across calamities:  floods, cloud burst, earthquake, even forest fires.The helicopter was his way of saluting the dare-devil rescue operations of the Indian Army.

Rest in peace, Surendra Pal Joshi, may the heavens be a large canvas, with no requirement of rescue. Jaipur will miss the spirit that soared, and touched so many lives.

Yunus Khimani

published in The Times of India (Jaipur Edition) on 14-06-18
Ms. Aparna Andhare has kindly edited the text