Jeram Patel (1930-2016)

Jeram Patel was born in 1930 at Sojitra in the Kaira district of Gujarat. He studied drawing and painting at Sir JJ School of Art, Mumbai between 1950 and 55, and typography and publicity design at Central School of Arts and Craft, London for two years till 1959. 
In 1976, Patel was appointed professor at the Faculty of Fine Arts, M. S. University, Baroda, where he later became the dean. Patel is considered one of the pioneers of abstract art in India. According to his contemporaries, such as poet and art critic Prayag Shukla, the eminent artist was a man of a quiet demeanor and a powerful, artistic language that was ahead of his time.

Jeram Patel was one of the artists who turned around the Indian art scene and formulated a new visual identity and method of abstraction in the late 1950's and 60's. In the 1960s, when artists in India were experimenting with form, Patel was pursuing a new kind of medium in abstraction—one that involved engraving on burnt wood that he set alight with a blowtorch. This method later became one of his most celebrated styles, along with his iconic black strokes and saturated shapes of ink on paper. Despite having a background in drawing and painting from Sir JJ School of Art in Mumbai, Patel later found inspiration to go beyond the canvas and paper during a visit to Japan in the late 1950s, where different materials for creating works were being used there at the time. For Patel, the process of burning and destructing wood involved plunging into an unknown area and creating something that instinctively responded to his inner creative feelings. Regarding the innovative medium that he developed, he said, “[T]here is a search for the unknown which, I think, has always found expression in my works.”

Patel was among the founding members of Group 1890, a collective formed in 1962 that comprised of 11 artists—among them Jagdish Swaminathan (1928–1994), Ambadas Khobragade (1922–2012) and Gulammohammed Sheikh—that initiated a new movement in Indian art in the aftermath of the country’s Independence in 1947. Seeking for a local but contemporary means of creative expression that would take on the institutionalized Western idiom, the group held their first and last exhibition at the LKA Gallery, New Delhi, with Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru inaugurating the show. Although the collective was short-lived, many of the members later went on to make progressive contributions to the contemporary Indian art scene. The artist passed away in 2016.

Selected solo shows

2011 Recent Works of Jeram Patel, The Harrington Street Arts Centre, Kolkata
2009 Shridharni Gallery, New Delhi
2007 Anant Art, New Delhi
2006 Palette Art Gallery, New Delhi
2004 Gallery Espace, New Delhi

Selected Group Shows

2008 'Baroda: A Tale of Two Cities', (Part I), Sarjan Art Gallery, Vadodara
2008 'Keep Drawing', Gallery Espace, New Delhi
2006 'Drawing Show an Act of Art II', Priyasri Art Gallery, Mumbai
2005 ‘Palette -Part II’, Palette Art Gallery, New Delhi
2005 ‘Manifestations III’, Delhi Art Gallery, New Delhi
1994 ‘Drawing ‘94’, New Delhi
1994 ‘Exhibition of 28 Contemporary Artists’, Maltwood Art Museum and Gallery, University of Victoria, USA
1989 Invited to Participate in an International Exhibition of Artists from Europe, America and Asia during 'East West Encounter in Visual Art', Organized by Max Mueller Bhavan, Mumbai at Jehangir Art Gallery, Mumbai
1985 ‘Graphic Art in India since 1950’, Lalit Kala Akademi, New Delhi
1985 ‘Graphic Print Exhibition’, Festival of India, USA
1979 Asian Artists Exhibition, Tokyo, Japan
1973 ‘Contemporary Indian Paintings’, Renwick Gallery, Washington DC, USA
1970 ‘Contemporary Indian Painters’, Tehran
1969 Indian Painters, Kolkata
1968 Five Contemporary Painters, Kunika Chemould Art Gallery, New Delhi
1967 ‘Seven Painters’, London

Participations

2012 'Crossings: Time Unfolded, Part 2', Kiran Nadar Museum of Art (KNMA), New Delhi
2011 'Ethos V: Indian Art Through the Lens of History (1900 to 1980), Indigo Blue Art, Singapore
2011 ‘Manifestations VI', Delhi Art Gallery, New Delhi
2011 ‘Manifestations V', Delhi Art Gallery, New Delhi
2010 'National Printmaking Portfolio', Marvel Art Gallery, Ahmedabad
2008-09 'Paz Mandala', Lalit Kala Akademi, New Delhi
1994 3rd International Prints Biennale, Bhopal
1982 Festival of India, London
1980 3rd World Biennale of Graphic Art, Baghdad
1979 3rd World Biennale of Graphic Art, London
1979 6th British International Print Biennale, London
1977 XIV Sao Paulo Biennale, Sao Paulo, Brazil
1968,75,78,81 1st,3rd,4th and 5th International Triennale, Lalit Kala Akademi, New Delhi
1963 Tokyo Biennale, Japan
1963 Sao Paulo Biennale

Awards
1997 Kala Ratna, All India Fine Arts and Crafts Society (AIFACS), New Delhi
1994 Emeritus Fellowship, Government of India
1992 Ravishankar Raval Award, Government of Gujarat
1980 Fellowship, Royal Society of Arts, London
1980 State Lalit Kala Academy, Gujarat
1976 National Award for Design, India
1960 Silver Medal, Bombay Art Society, Mumbai
1957,63,73,84 National Award, Lalit Kala Akademi, New Delhi