An artist who gave a new visual identity to modern Indian art through his abstract paintings in black and white, and in burnt wood, Jeram Patel was a pioneer who is remembered for transforming India’s visual arts landscape in the 1960s.
Patel was born in Sojitra in Gujarat on June 20, 1930, and studied at Sir J. J. School of Art, Bombay, 1950-55. He went to London to study typography and publicity design at the Central School of Arts and Craft, 1957-59. As a founder member of the short-lived yet seminal Group 1890 of 1962-63, whose chief ideologue was J. Swaminathan, Patel showed early proclivity to breach new frontiers for Indian art.
The artist’s visual language derived strength from the potent vocabulary of his abstraction, which involved amorphous shapes in black on white, as well as images rendered on wood by burning it with blowtorch. He pioneered the latter technique in Indian art, and his works in this genre remain iconic representatives of his repertoire. Throughout, abstraction remained his chief genre of expression.
Patel exhibited his works widely. Among other exhibitions, his work was shown at the Tokyo Biennale in 1957 and 1963; the International Triennale of the Lalit Kala Akademi, New Delhi, in 1968, 1975, 1978 and 1981; the Sao Paolo Biennale, 1977; British International Print Biennale, London, 1979, etc.
He served as professor of painting at MS University, Baroda, 1966-90, and became the chairman of the Board of Studies of Banaras Hindu University in 1981.
He passed away in Vadodara on January 18, 2016.