A Brush with Life

Satish Gujral was one of India’s most original modern artists-painter, sculptor, muralist, architect and writer-whose work crossed disciplines and eras. Born in Jhelum, undivided India, he lost his hearing as a child after a near-fatal accident. What might have confined him instead became the source of a lifelong search for form and meaning.

From his training at the Mayo School of Arts in Lahore and his years in Mexico under the influence of Diego Rivera and David Alfaro Siqueiros, to his return to a newly independent India, Gujral shaped a practice that was both deeply personal and politically alert. His paintings, sculptures and buildings bear witness to a sensibility that refused to separate art from life.

First published in 1997, A Brush with Life remains a lucid and unsparing account of an artist’s journey through loss, conviction and renewal. Reissued to mark his centenary, this edition includes a new foreword by Mohit Gujral and the original one by Khushwant Singh. It offers readers a portrait of a man who turned silence into vision, and who saw creation itself as an act of courage.