Having studied silkscreen painting in Britain in 1971, Bawa was aware that he ran the risk of becoming just another “derivative European-style painter”. So he developed his own style, combining training as a Modern artist with his love for age-old myths and deities. His art was gentle: so much so that even when it charted violence in Mapping the Conscience, a 2004 exhibition on the anti-Sikh violence, the images never turned brutal or bloody.

He enhanced his themes with a unique figuration that elongated and twisted forms as if they had no bones, no human restrictions. “The contortions were never disturbing. In fact, they went along beautifully with what he wanted to say,” said artist Krishen Khanna about his “junior” who never forgot to touch his feet whenever they met.

“At first, Manjit’s paintings did not sell,” recalled Bawa’s elder brother and mentor Manmohan. “Our relatives thought he was just wasting his time, until a Lalit Kala Akademi Award in 1981 became the turning point.” Bawa’s lyrical figures reinvented Krishna and Akka Mahadevi, and his works drew good prices even before the art boom had set in. “He was a painter who had a very sensitive and distinct attitude. He was not afraid to use old religious themes. His use of flat colour backgrounds and his treatment of animals had never been done before,” said Jogen Chowdhury, another close friend who knew Bawa since 1973.

“When he returned from London, I was working at Rashtrapati Bhavan and we worked for a group called Gallery 26 at Delhi’s Gole Market. We frequently spent time at my place, and he was a great cook,” Chowdhury said. “We have lost one of our most important painters.”

... contd.