: The Man Who Took Gond Art From Tribal Huts to The World’s Top Museums #IndiaNEWS An image of Lord Hanuman was drawn with lime and charcoal by hand on the humble red mud walls of a small hut in the

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The Man Who Took Gond Art From Tribal Huts to The World’s Top Museums #IndiaNEWS
An image of Lord Hanuman was drawn with lime and charcoal by hand on the humble red mud walls of a small hut in the remote village, Patangarh, of Dindori district of Madhya Pradesh in 1981. The artist was 17-year-old Gond Pradhan boy Jangarh Singh Shyam. The simplicity, the clean lines and the innocence of the figure helped catapult the hitherto confined Gond tribal art and the artist onto the national and international art circuit.
That was the year when the government of Madhya Pradesh planned to build a multi-purpose art centre, Bharat Bhavan, in its capital city Bhopal. Contemporary and well-known artist Jagdish Swaminathan was given the responsibility of establishing the centre where both urban and rural (folk and tribal) arts could be displayed. While scouring the villages of MP for tribal art, he saw the drawing of Lord Hanuman on the walls of a tribal home. That’s when he discovered the uninfluenced talent of Jangarh Shyam and brought him to Bhopal with the promise of work in the field he loved.
Thus began the saga of Gond art coming out of villages to the mainstream.
Swaminathan took it upon himself to introduce the young Jangarh to canvas and acrylic paints. The rest as they say is history. Without losing touch with his tribal roots or focus, the highly gifted boy soon learnt the new medium. His work, from being displayed on the walls of tribal huts, buffalo backs or kuccha roads, received a new stage in the galleries of Japan, the UK, Germany, France and the USA.
Unknowingly Jangarh became the pioneer of modern-day Gond art and paved the way for others from his village to find a new source of livelihood.
Mayank Singh Shyam prefers to work on a white background with black colours representing the tribal stories of trees, animals, water and sea animals in his contemporary style
“My father was so passionate about drawing that he would draw with whatever he could get on buffalo backs when he took them out to graze in the forest of our village. The striking white lines on the black buffalo was much appreciated by the villagers,� recalls 35-year-old, Bhopal-based Mayank Singh Shyam, talking about his late father Jangarh. Barely 13 at the time of his father’s death, today Mayank along with his mother Nankusia Bai and sister Japani, are continuing the legacy of Jangarh Kalam, school of Gond art.
Explaining the tribal tradition of naming the child on some event happening around the birthday, Mayank says, “Our father was based in Japan when she was born and so she was named Japani. It was a full moon day when I was born and so I was named Mayank, which means the moon. �
Japani laughingly admits that as a child she hated her name as in the school it amused everyone and classmates used to pull her leg a lot.

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