Artist Jyoti Bhatt wins Balkrishna Doshi: Guru Ratna Award 2024

The sophomore honoree of the Balkrishna Doshi: Guru Ratna Award is Professor Jyoti Bhatt, accorded the prestigious award in recognition of his exceptional contributions to visual arts and fine arts education. “It is with great reverence and admiration that we recognise Shri Jyoti Bhatt for his untiring commitment to furthering arts education, his quest for meaning and empathic self-awareness as an artist,” Vastu Shilpa Foundation announces. Bhatt, a Padma Shri awardee, is a distinguished artist and revered educator who has had a transformative impact on the art world through his innovative practice and philosophical approach to art education. Witnessing a dominant presence of national cultural motifs in his work, one can ascribe a connection between Bhatt’s rooted inspirations and Doshi’s culturally ingrained ingenuity, despite the disparate disciplines that they have dominated.

Indian architect Balkrishna Vithaldas Doshi or BV Doshi is a figure that is emblematic of India’s post-colonial commitment to upholding democracy, socialism and innovation that lies at the brink of indigeneity and modernism. With a rich portfolio of architectural works spread across the expanse of the country, Doshi promulgated the fusion of architecture with urbanism and humanism. Inspired by his mentors Le Corbusier and Louis Kahn, the late architect etched designs that meld traditional materials and techniques with contemporary volumes to give form to a novel design identity, mirroring the evolution of the newly independent country. With Doshi’s contributions towards defining the architectural landscape of independent India being duly awarded some of the most prestigious awards such as the Aga Khan Award for Architecture, the RIBA Gold Medal and the Pritzker Prize, his legacy continues to be cited, taught, applauded and appreciated more than a year since his passing on January 24, 2023.

In memory of Doshi’s legacy as an architect and educator and to honour creative stalwarts who carve newfangled paths, the Vastu Shilpa Foundation—a chapter of Vastu Shilpa Consultants set up by the architect during his life, for research in built environment and habitat—announced the establishment of the Balkrishna Doshi: Guru Ratna Award on August 26, 2023, his birth anniversary. The award was established “with the intent of bestowing it upon educators who diligently nurture an innate inquisitiveness and intuitive insight in the students within the realms of art, design, and architecture, within the Indian subcontinent.”

While the inaugural honoree of the award was Professor Neelkanth Chhaya, the awardee for Balkrishna Doshi: Guru Ratna Award 2024 is Professor Jyoti Bhatt, a renowned Indian artist celebrated for his contributions to painting, printmaking and photography. “For us at the Foundation, Jyoti Bhatt’s life and work serve as a palimpsest and a lens through which to view the evolving art world and ever-changing currents of art pedagogy in India, of which Bhatt has been a keen navigator,” reads a passage from the press statement.

An elected Fellow of the Lalit Kala Akademi, Bhatt was born in Bhavnagar in Gujarat and currently resides in Vadodara. He took an interest in drawing at an early age, an appeal that can be attributed to the inspiration he gained from Shishu Vihar, the art institute managed by his father. Thereafter, the Indian artist studied painting and printmaking at the Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda (MSU). Under the mentorship of artist KG Subramanyan, Bhatt explored the academic divides between art and craft, while also gaining expertise in mural painting and fresco making from Banasthali Vidyapith in Rajasthan. In the early ‘60s, Bhatt, upon receiving a scholarship to further his studies at the Accademia de Belle Arti in Naples, Italy as well as the Pratt Institute in New York, was exposed to abstract expressionism. While Bhatt’s early works reflected the cubist style, he later shifted to pop imagery, before eventually arriving at a style that was inspired by traditional folk imagery and integrated cultural symbolism extensively. Bhatt has experimented with a variety of mediums such as watercolour and oil. His most recognised works, however, are his printmaking projects. Bhatt’s work is inspired by both modern aesthetics and traditional Indian motifs. Apart from stylistic and material experimentations, Bhatt also engages in larger conversations about the environment, signs of ageing and temporality.

During the late ‘60s, Bhatt taught at MSU in Baroda. With a thorough knowledge of the intaglio process that he had gained at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, he, along with NS Bendre, KG Subramanyan, Balkrishna Patel, Himmat Shah, Ratan Parimoo, Gulammohammed Sheikh, Vinodray Patel and Vinod Shah, among others, at the Faculty of Fine Arts in Baroda came to be known as the Baroda School of Indian Art or the Baroda Group of Artists. The Baroda School championed practices that could serve as an alternative to the revivalist tendencies of the Bengal School of Art. The Baroda School encouraged modernist ideologies and individual self-expression among artists. The group encouraged the practice of art in a multicultural and secular space sans any restriction on process and experimentation. The artists drew references from many visual sources and incorporated styles and techniques from indigenous folk art in India, whilst also utilising elements from Western modernism. Formerly, the group unanimously and individually experimented more with abstract art. However, during the 1980s, this evolved to include narrative, figurative and allegorical elements as opposed to abstract entities.

I have a policy of not saying no.
– Jyoti Bhatt

During his stint at MSU, Bhatt also developed an interest in documenting traditional Indian craft and design work. Having photographed Gujarati folk art for a seminar, Bhatt grew passionate about documenting the disappearing arts of Gujarat. In his words, “I have always been interested in telling stories that are born out of the nature of contrasts, in the magic of strange meetings between objects and people and even small insignificant happenings. When a picture assumes its own identity, as if by magic a small new world is born. That is the excitement of making. When you look at my prints, even if it was made in the 1960s or 1970s, you should feel you have never seen them before. Originality in conceptualisation is the key to creating anything.” 

Forging an investigation into the folk and tribal designs led him to gain inspiration from these motifs, which he eventually began to employ in his printmaking. The inspiration sought from traditional motifs in Bhatt’s work is best expressed in his words, “Right from my childhood I have lived in today. Sometimes in the past, but never in the future.”

An excerpt from the press release mentions, “His extensive travels through Indian hinterlands brought significant depth to his image-making and a lifelong legacy of discovery which also passed down to his students. Through Bhatt’s expansive repertoire of prints, photographs and paintings, we witness the artist’s rigorous investment in documentation through vast and varied landscapes, the desire to highlight artistic life and craftsmanship in Indian life and their presence in his oeuvre reveal perhaps an impulse to turn those fleeting moments into permanent ones.”

As an educator, Bhatt is viewed as “a vast ocean of discovery, context and endless possibility” by his students at MSU. Having worked as an art teacher since 1966, Bhatt, with an emphasis on cultural heritage in contemporary art, has played a crucial role in shaping the Indian art landscape and serving as a mentor for various artists across generations. In his teaching career, Bhatt says, “I have a policy of not saying no,” which encourages students to approach the teacher of their choice with questions and doubts. Bhatt has also been instrumental in advocating for the inclusion of women in arts education – both in art teaching and practice. An avid experimenter, Bhatt encourages his students to evolve with time, both in terms of their style and skills and strike a balance between the integration of modern and digital techniques and traditional and hand work.

With the official announcement for the award made, the Balkrishna Doshi: Guru Ratna Award will be ceremonially held in December, in Ahmedabad, Gujarat.