An Unlikely Success: S.G. Thakur Singh’s Journey and Artworks
Growing up in Verka, a small, suburban village of Amritsar, S.G. Thakur Singh (1899-1976) had no formal introduction or training in the arts. Coming from a family of carpenters, it was unlikely that Thakur Singh would ever achieve fame and success as an artist, but fate ordained otherwise. His natural inclinations often took him to fields and farmlands, where he would recreate beautiful scenes of nature in his sketches. When he was ten years old, a kind art teacher at his school, Mian Muhammad Alam, noticed his talent, and took him under his wing. A few years later, Muhammad Alam secured the job of art director at a theater company in Bombay. He summoned his favourite student and apprentice to Bombay, after which there was no looking back for Thakur Singh.
It is in Bombay that Thakur Singh was formally “discovered”. As he sat on the Chowpatty beach painting the sunrise one day, his work was noticed by the editor of a Parsi newspaper, who nudged him to participate in an art exhibition in Shimla. Singh not only participated, but also bagged the first prize, a precious sum of Rs. 500, when he was only 18 years old. This winning streak continued and Thakur Singh won the second prize at the British Empire Exhibition in London in 1924. By then, the artist duo had moved to Calcutta, where they found a greater demand for their talent and skills. It is estimated that Thakur Singh painted close to 10,000 paintings in his sixteen years in Calcutta. He became renowned for his intricate and life-like paintings, as well as the hint of eroticism and sensuality. In this period, he was inundated with commissions from members of the nobility and ruling class.
Keenly aware of his unlikely success and the lack of opportunities for budding artists, Thakur Singh co-founded the Punjab Fine Art Society in Calcutta to train and support artists from Punjab. In 1931, he finally moved back to Amritsar where he continued painting until his death in 1976. In Amritsar, he also established the Thakur Singh School of Arts to help young artists in his home state.
He was bestowed with several honors, both in India and abroad. In 1953, he was nominated as a member of the Punjab Legislative Council. The Russian and Hungarian governments also invited him to exhibit his work in Moscow, Leningrad and Budapest in 1959.