Jagdish Swaminathan  (Indian, 1928-1994) 

Jagdish Swaminathan (Indian, 1928–1994) was born in Simla, and briefly educated at Delhi Polytechnic, and later in Warsaw, Poland. In his early days, he joined the Communist Party of India, where he worked as a journalist and art critic for Left magazine until the mid 1950s. In the late 1950s, Swaminathan decided to become a full-time artist, and with a group of other artists, founded Group 1890. Swaminathan wrote the group’s manifesto, which attacked “vulgar naturalism,” the idealism of the Bengal School, and the “hybrid mannerism” of European Modernism; they preferred and urged other artists to see the wonder in the virginal state. Swaminathan’s paintings were simplistic, and Group 1890 had its first and last show in 1963. In the 1990s, he broke away from his earlier geometric brush paintings, began to explore the use of symbols in tribal art, and applied pigments with his fingers as a way to achieve a desired effect. Swaminathan received numerous awards and achievements during his career. In 1968, he was awarded the Nehru Fellowship to work on The Significance of the Traditional Numen in Contemporary Art. Later, he was a member of the International Jury of São Paulo, served on the board of the Indian Council for Cultural Relations, and a trustee of the Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts. In 1981, the government of Madhya Pradesh invited Swaminathan to set up Roopanker, an art museum, at Bharat Bhavan, Bhopal. At Roopanker, he served as Director until 1990. Throughout his career, Swaminathan held about 30 solo exhibitions and participated in numerous national and international exhibitions, before his death in 1994.