Three births, a biennale, and a new book: Gulammohammed Sheikh at 89

Today marks 89 years of Gulammohammed Sheikh — artist, poet, art historian, and pedagogue — who has lived his life across canvases, classrooms, and the written word. His exhibition, ‘Of Worlds Within Worlds’, is currently on view at the sixth edition of the Kochi-Muziris Biennale, bringing together works that span decades of a remarkable career.

Some months ago, I spoke with Sheikh’s wife, Nilima, herself one of India’s leading contemporary artists, about the many roles he inhabits. She described it as the ‘Santiniketan template’: a vision of the artist not merely as an “artist-artist,” who is confined to the studio, but as a polymath.

Of three births

Decades ago, when Sheikh started out, it was impossible for him to survive solely as an artist, she said. He found a place as a teacher at the renowned Faculty of Fine Arts, Baroda (now Vadodara). Over time, he has shaped generations of students, first in art history and later in painting, many of whom, including Nilima and Vivan Sundaram, have gone on to establish their names in the world of art. Sheikh’s own teachers — N.S. Bendre, Sankho Chaudhuri, and K.G. Subramanyan — were all products of Santiniketan, and the lineage of that teaching continues to resonate in his work and pedagogy.

Sheikh often speaks of having experienced three births in his life. The first, of course, was his biological birth in 1937, into a lower middle-class Sunni Muslim family in Surendranagar, a small town in the Saurashtra region of Gujarat, where he spent the first 18 years of his life. The second came in 1955, when, on the suggestion of Ravishankar Raval, the celebrated ‘Kalaguru (Master of Art)’ of Gujarat, he joined the Faculty of Fine Arts at Baroda. The city transformed him: he encountered teachers who had extraordinary vision, he formed friendships that would last a lifetime, and he realised that there was no returning to the dusty streets of Surendranagar. During the final year of his studies, he held his first solo exhibition at the Jehangir Art Gallery in Mumbai, inaugurated by M.F. Husain. Around the same time, he met Mexican poet Octavio Paz in Delhi and, together with fellow artists, founded Group 1890. The third birth came in 1963, when Sheikh received a Commonwealth Scholarship to study at the Royal College of Art in London, boarding a plane for the first time and stepping into a world of new possibilities.

In his tellings, these three passages are not merely chronological markers, but turning points that shaped his vision — each birth carrying him toward the worlds he continues to explore in paint, poetry, and pedagogy.

Over the years, writers and curators have sought to capture the scope of Sheikh’s varied career. Read together, three publications offer a clear sense of how his life and work have unfolded through a range of artistic forms.

A chronicle in three volumes

The first comprehensive study of Sheikh’s art and life was by Chaitanya Sambrani in At Home in the World. The book brings together all his major works up to its publication in 2019, situating them alongside biographical details woven into the broader chronological narrative of independent India. Essays by critics such as Coilin Parsons offer insights into Sheikh’s artistic practice and his enduring contribution to contemporary Indian art. The catalogue also documents the locations of his works in museums and private collections around the world, providing readers with a detailed map of Sheikh’s global presence.

Kavita Singh’s Gulammohammed Sheikh: City, Kaavad and Other Works takes a closer look at key moments in Sheikh’s later practice. It explores his Kaavads — monumental panels several feet high and wide, designed for viewers to walk through and experience sequential images across multiple surfaces. Inspired by the traditional travelling shrines of western India, Sheikh’s Kaavads translate this folk tradition into a contemporary artistic language. The book captures their immersive quality, documenting both scale and intricate visual narratives, while highlighting Sheikh’s engagement with history, ritual, and storytelling.

Gulammohammed Sheikh: Kaarawaan is an exhibition catalogue published in conjunction with Sheikh’s solo exhibition, ‘Kaarawaan and Other Works’, presented by Vadehra Art Gallery at Bikaner House, New Delhi, in the winter of 2024. The exhibition marked Sheikh’s first solo show after a gap of 13 years. One of its largest works, also titled ‘Kaarawaan’, appears to gather everything the artist has experienced, lived, and loved into a giant boat, recalling the great Indian painter Nainsukh in A Boat Adrift on a River. The painting is an amalgamation of artworks, artists, and ideas from across the world that have influenced Sheikh over six decades. A close reading of its details reveals figures such as Gauri Lankesh and M.M. Kalburgi alongside Rabindranath Tagore, Pablo Picasso, and others. Sheikh’s vessel drifts through the tumultuous waters of our time, bearing witness to history and the present. Mahatma Gandhi and Kabir are two historical figures who appear frequently in Sheikh’s work. Perhaps the artist is seeking guidance and answers to the pressing questions of our time from the wisdom of these two saintly figures.

These books do more than document a career; they capture both the range of his artistic practice and the continuity of his vision across decades.

Last year, the Kiran Nadar Museum of Art staged a large-scale retrospective of Sheikh’s lifetime of works in Delhi. At the exhibition’s entrance stands one of his most celebrated paintings, ‘Returning Home After a Long Absence’, a work that encapsulates his themes of memory, journey, and belonging.

Sheikh, the writer and poet

Beyond the visual arts, Sheikh is a celebrated Gujarati writer and poet. His first poetry collection, Athva, was published half a century ago. His writings on visual arts, Nirkhe Te Najar, remain unique in their genre. Themes of return and reflection recur in his autobiographical essays, collected in Gher Jatan, which won him the prestigious Sahitya Akademi Award in 2022. His latest book, Bheru, Guru Ane Gothiya, published last month, chronicles the lives of 13 artist-friends. Sheikh has said that English translations of these works will be available soon — a treasure for admirers eager to access the full spectrum of his literary output.

Even in this stage of life, Sheikh remains relentlessly curious. In his Vadodara studio, he can often be found painting alongside younger artists in a collaborative, almost Karkhana-like workshop reminiscent of the Mughal period, nurturing talent and illuminating the world around him.

Mehul Devkala is a poet, writer and award-winning filmmaker