| Born in Mumbai in 1922,
Jehangir Sabavala, grandson of Sir Cawasjee, obtained
his diploma from the J.J. School of Art, Mumbai, in
1944. Between 1945-47, he went to study at the Heatherley
School of Art, London, and from there on to Paris where
he was enrolled at the Academic Andre Lhote between
1948-51 and the Academic Julian between 1953-54. In
1957, he did a course from the Academic de la Grande
Chaumiere. In 1977, Sabavala was awarded the Padma Shri.
Practicing in the modernist mode, he creates wedges
of paint which form vast, still landscapes. In his works,
the human form which used to appear in a diminutive
form, enveloped in solitude, has, over the years, begun
to emerge in close-ups. But yet it manages to retain
the distance of a remembered past. Sabavala lives in
Mumbai and still works an assiduous eight-hour day in
complete concentration before his canvas, figuring out
the many mysteries that eventually take form on it.
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