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' Baldev Raj Rattan 1917-2011
Rattan’s
later work
aldev
Raj Rattan, who has died aged 94, was an art teacher of post-1947
generation of Punjabi painters and a landscape painter himself. He
was born in Sialkot and later trained at Mayo School Lahore under
‘Master’ Feroz Din, ‘Master’ Jagan Nath and BC Sanyal. After
Partition he worked at Delhi before joining Art College at Shimla and
retired in 1971 from Chandigarh College of Art.
Rattan. Chandigarh. 2007. Pics Balvinder Singh I
remember Rattan as an art teacher of extraordinary qualities. During
my art college days, in the 1960s, I was not a favourite student of Mr
Rattan. In fact I, an impatient student by nature, used to be scared of
him because he, a perfectionist to the core, was a very tough task master
and would never be satisfied with my quickie art homework. I
distinctly remember his thoroughly dissatisfied expression on his face
every time I showed him my lettering chart. He would always ask me that
why my ‘S’ never has that swan like grace. It took time to
understand and appreciate the essence of his any such gentle rebukes much
later in my life when I myself became an art teacher. In December 2007 the Punjab Governor and Administrator, Union Territory,
Chandigarh, S.F. Rodrigues, inaugurated a ‘Retrospective of
renowned artist & distinguished landscape painter, Baldev Raj
Rattan’ at Government Museum and Art Gallery.
Chandigarh
retrospective show
in 2007. Pic The Tribune Rattan
was passionate water colourist. It was his solo contribution that despite
the fact that water colour is a technically toughest of all the art media,
he had made it a very popular amongst all the art college students.
Whether one could handle this medium properly or not was immaterial. Every
Sunday students, in small groups, would venture out like a religious
ritual, for landscape painting flaunting their pasting-boards and Windsor
& Newtons’ water colour boxes. With
his going, I think, the last of the breed of dedicated art teachers
perhaps have come to an end. A
big thank you Mr Rattan that once after I understood you, though
belatedly, my future line drawings, my forte, never lacked the required
grace. Balvinder Singh Baldev
Raj Rattan, Punjabi art teacher and painter, born 1917 Sialkot; died March
2011 Chandigarh |
