Satish Gujral@100: A Monumental Retrospective Reclaims A Modernist Master

The National Gallery of Modern Art’s centenary exhibition, Satish Gujral 100 is conceived as a rigorous, museum-scale reassessment of one of India’s most influential modern artists. Presented by the NGMA in collaboration with the Gujral Foundation, the show brings together public custodianship and private archival stewardship to chart over seven decades of Gujral’s creative life, positioning him as a painter, sculptor, architect and cultural thinker whose work consistently resisted disciplinary boundaries.

Curated by Kishore Singh, the exhibition is organized as a sequence of thematic and material explorations rather than a straightforward chronology. This structure reflects Gujral’s own approach to practice, in which ideas moved fluidly between mediums and moments in history. The opening sections focus on early paintings shaped by the trauma of Partition, works marked by thick surfaces, distorted bodies and an unflinching emotional intensity. These galleries establish Gujral’s --- who would have been 100 this year – lifelong engagement with memory, loss and displacement, and his refusal to aestheticized suffering. Instead, pain is rendered as form, weight and rupture.

From painting, the exhibition moves into sculpture, where Gujral’s concerns with mass and physical presence become pronounced. Sculptural works constructed from varied materials extend the emotional charge of the canvases into three dimensions. These sections underline how sculpture was not a detour but a core language for Gujral, allowing him to explore political anxiety, human vulnerability and resilience through volume and texture. The curatorial sequencing makes clear that Gujral’s sculptural and painterly practices developed in constant dialogue.

Gujral as artist-architect

A substantial portion of the exhibition is devoted to architecture, foregrounding Gujral’s rare position as an artist-architect. Architectural drawings, photographs and studies reveal his belief that art must exist in public space and engage directly with civic and cultural life. Rather than isolating architecture as a separate discipline, the exhibition frames it as an extension of Gujral’s artistic thinking, driven by symbolism, monumentality and the human experience of space. As curator Kishore Singh has observed, “Gujral’s work across media remained closely connected to what he saw around him, particularly questions of nationhood and post-Independence identity”.

One of the exhibition’s strongest elements is its archival depth. Sketches, preparatory studies, correspondence, photographs and personal material—many shown publicly for the first time—offer insight into Gujral’s working process and intellectual rigor. These quieter sections slow the pace of viewing and reveal an artist constantly revising, questioning and rethinking form. The inclusion of studio-related material towards the end of the exhibition reinforces the sense of Gujral as a lifelong experimenter rather than a figure fixed in historical reverence.

Äs the exhibition opened, members of the Gujral family, and a huge gathering of artists, critics, curators, architects and collectors—the who’s who of India’s art world – showed up. Dr Sanjeev Kishor Goutam, Director General of NGMA, described Gujral as occupying “a pivotal place in the story of Indian modernism,” adding that the centenary exhibition reflects NGMA’s mandate to preserve artistic legacies while presenting them through contemporary curatorial perspectives.

For the Gujral family, the exhibition represents both an institutional milestone and a personal moment of reflection. His son Mohit Gujral emphasized that the centenary should not be seen as a closing chapter. “The centenary is not only a moment of remembrance,” he said at the opening, “but an invitation to re-engage with Gujral’s ideas, courage, and lifelong experimentation across disciplines.” That spirit of re-engagement runs throughout the exhibition, which avoids nostalgia in favor of critical recontextualization.

Critics present at the opening noted the exhibition’s scale and intellectual ambition. Senior art critic Ramanika Sehgal described it as a retrospective that deepens understanding rather than simply celebrating achievement, observing that it situates Gujral’s work within both personal history and the broader cultural evolution of post-Independence India. Another critic remarked that the exhibition sets a “benchmark for institutional retrospectives by combining political urgency, material experimentation and archival scholarship without flattening the complexity of the artist’s career”.

While the exhibition does not foreground the logistics of its making, it is evident that Satish Gujral 100 is the result of extended research, archival consolidation and close collaboration between the Gujral Foundation and NGMA. The scope of material on view—spanning paintings, sculptures, architectural projects and rare documents—signals a long and careful process of assembly rather than a hurried centenary gesture.

On view until 31 March 2026, Satish Gujral 100 positions itself not merely as a commemorative exhibition but as a critical intervention in the narrative of Indian modernism. By presenting Gujral as a multidisciplinary figure shaped by history yet constantly pushing against its constraints, the exhibition reasserts the continuing relevance of his work and ideas. It makes a compelling case for Gujral not only as a modern master, but as an artist whose questions about memory, material and nationhood remain urgently contemporary.

(Neeta Lal, formerly Senior Editor with some of India's leading mainline publications (TOI, India Today and The Asian Age), is a SOPA-nominated independent journalist exploring the intersections of art, culture, travel & lifestyle in South Asia and beyond)