Jehangir Sabavala, an artist whose career spanned over 60 years, passed away on Friday morning after battling lung cancer for two years. The end came at Breach Candy Hospital owing to respiratory failure.
Mr. Sabavala, 89, is survived by his wife Shirin and daughter Aafreed.
“He was admitted to the hospital two weeks ago. He was in a critical condition. He was initially in the intensive care unit and later shifted to a room. He passed away this morning between 10.30 and 11,” Santosh Shetty, CEO, Breach Candy Hospital Trust, told The Hindu on the phone.
He was born in 1922 in Mumbai and got a fine arts diploma from the Sir J.J. School of Art in 1944. Then he went to Europe and studied at the Heatherley School of Fine Art, London, from 1945-47, and in Paris from 1948-51, Académie Julian from 1953-54, and Académie de la Grande Chaumière in 1957.
Mr. Sabavala had over 30 solo exhibitions in India and abroad, starting from the one at the Taj Mahal Hotel in Mumbai, with the help of the late M.F. Husain.
He had solo exhibitions at Aicon Gallery, New York, in 2009 and Sakshi Gallery, Mumbai, in 2008, and ‘Jehangir Sabavala: A Retrospective' organised by Sakshi Gallery at the National Gallery of Modern Art, Mumbai, and New Delhi, in 2005-06.
His works figured in numerous group exhibitions worldwide, including ‘Trends and Techniques-Water Color in India' at Galerie 88, Kolkata, in 2005; ‘The Search,' Mumbai, in 2004; and in a display of the Jehangir Nicholson Collection, Mumbai, also in 2004.
A film on his life Colours of Absence , by Arun Khopkar, won the National Award in 1994.
Sabavala was awarded the ‘Padma Shri' in 1977 and the Lalit Kala Ratna in 2007.
He was felicitated by the Society of Contemporary Artists, Kolkata, and honoured with the Dadabhai Naoroji Millennium Award, Kala Ratna by the All-India Fine Arts and Crafts Society, New Delhi, and the Grand Prix de la Peinture, Monaco.
