The Indian art world mourns the loss of Jasu Rawal, the veteran painter whose quiet brilliance and poetic sensibility redefined minimalist abstraction in contemporary Indian art. Rawal, who spent over five decades transforming the language of visual expression through dreamlike compositions and gentle forms, has passed away, leaving behind a legacy that whispers rather than shouts. His work invites viewers to pause, feel, and contemplate.
Rawal was born in 1939 in Halvad, an ancient fortified town on the southern edge of the Rann of Kutch in Gujarat. He grew up in a typical middle-class Gujarati family. His father, who served in Karachi during undivided India, passed away when Rawal was just one year old. His mother, a housewife, trained herself, joined government service, and raised him with love in Rajkot. He spent his childhood in colorful suburban settings that had considerable influence on his creative work. Paper boats, flying kites, and regal buildings became frequent motifs in his paintings, all connected to those childhood days.
Rawal studied at the College of Fine Arts in Baroda, where he completed both his Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees. The atmosphere there was free, unconstrained, and motivating. Students came from different backgrounds but bonded well. Teachers were renowned and practicing artists themselves, which made them open-minded. Baroda nourished his visual sensibilities during these formative years.
As a young student in Rajkot, one of his teachers gave him a book on Paul Klee. The images fascinated him deeply. Klee’s iridescent landscapes with deep colors and intriguing forms left an everlasting impression that shaped his entire artistic practice. After absorbing Klee’s influence, Rawal gradually moved away from portraiture and began following the motif of mysterious landscapes in which small still-life elements were embedded. He realized great freedom in bringing disparate forms and objects together in colorful, imagined spaces.
He held his first solo exhibition in 1968 at the Jehangir Art Gallery in Mumbai. In 1969, he made a deliberate decision that would define his practice. He relocated to Bangalore to join the Weavers’ Service Centre as a designer. This was a significant move. There were approximately 100 applications for five posts, and many applicants were established artists. The selection committee was chaired by Pupul Jayakar, who chose Rawal despite his being fresh out of college. The Weavers’ Centre, as conceived by Jayakar, was not a production house but a place for research and experimentation in weaving, designing, and printing. Rawal spent almost three decades there before retiring in 1997.
During his time at the Weavers’ Centre, Rawal developed a close relationship with M.F. Husain. Though they had seen each other occasionally in Baroda, they got to know each other better when Husain came to the center to make tapestries. Rawal was struck by Husain’s energy and child-like enthusiasm. When Husain saw some of Rawal’s paintings, he was critical that Rawal was not painting enough. Husain commanded him to show 100 paintings on his next visit to Bangalore. When Husain returned, Rawal showed him no more than 20 or 25 small works. Husain examined each one carefully and bought two of them instantly. On his next trip, Husain called Rawal to his room, showed him some of his work, and suddenly handed one to him as a gift, saying, “Rawal, this one is for you.” Rawal later reflected that he could never forget that moment.
Rawal’s approach to art was deeply contemplative. His paintings seem to reflect an inner calm, tenderness, and tranquility. He combined elements of minimalism, abstraction, and surrealism in his work. His landscapes are enlivened by everyday objects, forms, and symbols spread across transparent colored planes. From the very beginning, he was interested in small formats, which he found more intimate and easier to handle. He felt it was important to stick to things one is comfortable with and can express oneself through, rather than experimenting in formats that do not suit one’s practice.
His signature palette included intense orange-reds, yellows, blues, blue-violets, greens, browns, and greys. These were deployed with deliberate restraint across minimalist compositions. Rather than overwhelming the viewer with visual information, his works invited interpretation through the strategic placement of color and form. His practice of leaving paintings untitled became a statement in itself. It was a declaration that art’s power resides in its capacity to generate individual experience rather than impose singular meanings.
Over his long career, Rawal participated in over 100 group shows in India and abroad, besides several solo exhibitions. His works have won him awards from the Lalit Kala Academies of Karnataka and Gujarat. His contributions to contemporary Indian art received institutional recognition throughout his life. In 2019, at age 80, he continued to contemplate landscapes and still-life studies with the same gentle exuberance that had marked his work since the 1960s.
In the 1970s, there were no commercial galleries or forums available for artists in Bangalore to exhibit their work, let alone sell them. There were few art schools and only small group meetings where artists could discuss their craft. Later, when galleries came up, opportunities to exhibit improved significantly. Over the last few decades, Rawal was fortunate to be associated with several galleries and collectors who treated him with love and respect.
Rawal’s paintings carry an unmistakable honesty. They are soft, lyrical, and full of quiet emotion. His abstract landscapes, geometric compositions, and delicate still lifes reflect a profound simplicity where color and form breathe with intention and care. Through his works, he sought harmony and contemplation, transforming everyday elements into meditations on balance, beauty, and the spaces between visibility and invisibility.
Contributor
