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Raghav Kaneria is a personality of a curious ensemble of strength and enthusiasm. His works as well reflects traits of his personality and the delicate sensitivity of his artistic mind.

LIFE AND CAREER
He was born in the year of 1936 in the Westen Indian State of Gujarat. In 1959 he completed his Diploma with a First Class and consequently a Post-diploma from the Department of Sculpture, Faculty of Fine arts, Maharaja Sayajirao University, Baroda. In 1960-'62 he received the Cultural Scholarship from the Govt. of India. Then by 1964-'67 he received the prestigious Commonwealth Scholarship to the Royal College of Art, London. Afterwards in 1967 as an associate and in 1968 he received the M.Art degree from Royal College of Art, London. From 1967 to 1969, he worked as a Faculty member in the Department of Sculpture at Walthamstow School of Art, London. Leaving behind the prosperous career at Britain, he came back to India in 1969 and joined the Department of Sculpture at Baroda as a Faculty member in 1970. He became a Professor in 1985 and continued till 1996.

ARTISTIC PRACTICE
He began with mediums like cement, concrete, uncarved wood for his works. His initial works express powerful force. Over time he gradually takes resort in metal. In this phase he exhibited at Bombay Art Society’s annual exhibition. In the year of 1961-62, one of his work named ‘Cock’ was reproduced in the Society’s Exhibition Catalogue and the ‘Bull’(1959) won Gold Medal. Both the works drew attention of the critics as well as connoisseurs for the unfathomable force and vitality they express. In a newspaper article in 1970, Gulamohammad Sheikh commented on his Kaneria’s works, retrospectively, as “having the intensity of totems: images risen from the earth like tombstones like an unknown tribe.” Kaneria’s senses of order acquired from early modernist lessons and also from the keenness for rural craft.

His artistic journey can be analysed in phases like an experimentalist in 1960’s while perfectionist in 1970’s. In early 1960’s his works shifted from modelling and casting to assemblage and construction in industrial scrap like wood, steel or using direct process like carving and joining or by breaking surfaces by nailing, chiselling and drilling. Though playful and emotional in the beginning he gradually achieved a more rational outcome making it finer and expressive. With the dexterous treatment of junk, the rusty textural surface gives an expression of a distorted human figure in the works named ‘Cactus ‘and ‘Scare Crow’ – two of the best examples of welded junk sculptures. The works stands at a juncture of traditional design forms by rendering sensuous and organic from industrial junk by deft combinations. By the mid 1960’s the artist evolved into lyrical rhythm in the soft flexibility and ambiguity of metal. Now the works project-controlled emotion and a masterly technical skill. In early 1970’s he brought together welding and indirect casting techniques that mark a new arena of his practice. He selected readymade forms and casted machinery parts. He would either get them grinned and welded or make a reproduction of the forms in plaster or bronze with his mastery of material treatment. The entire work becomes then a confluence of broad narrow forms, round cylindrical and circular forms, organised in various forms and flowing movements. This practice was perceived during 1973 where the tabular form emerges out of a round base with dented curves between them along with a highly polished finish that reinforce the artist’s emphasis on forms. His later works again replaces the industrial junk and earlier techniques to pick subjects imbued with ritual cults and deities from the village. Here he has followed the fundamentals of traditional sculptor’s views to stick to ‘truth to nature and character of material’. He has dealt with subjects of nostalgia and memory which objectively conforms to European modernism for the visual while is rooted in his personal history of village-life that further ensures the idea of regional modernism. In his own words, “during my childhood days in saurashtra I used to play with animals. I enjoyed it very much. Apart from recurring nostalgia that has also provided inspiration for my work. Even after coming to Baroda I love to play with animals but through my works as it gives me immense pleasure.”