There was a time, in a newly independent India, when Shanti Dave’s name was inescapable in Indian art circles. Dave, among the country’s original Modern abstractionists, was one of the first batches to graduate under the great N.S. Bendre’s tutelage from the M.S. Baroda School of Fine Arts. Almost immediately, he had been invited to draw murals at the Rashtrapati Bhavan in Delhi. It was a tall honour and just the beginning.
Soon after the Lalit Kala Akademi was instituted in 1954, the artist from Badpura village in Gujarat won top prizes consecutively for three years, between 1956 and 1958. He flew around the world, representing India and being represented at international triennales. In the early 1960s, his reputation as a muralist began to transcend national borders. Commissions from Air India meant his art was decorating the walls of the airline’s Rome, Sydney, Bombay, London and New York offices. When The New York Times ran a large photo of the latter in print 1964, captioned ‘Little Gujarat’, Dave — now over 90-years-old — called it his life’s happiest experience.
