User:Surjit Akre/sandbox

Surjit Akre Born -  22 March 1954, Taran Tarn, Punjab, India. Nationality -  Indian,  Education  -  Post Graduate Degree in Easel Painting, Faculty of Fine Arts,                                                                                                              Academy of Arts, Repin Institute of Painting, Sculpture & Architecture, in St. Petersburg,Russia. (1978-85).

Surjit Akre (Punjabi: ਸੁਰਜੀਤ ਆਕਰੇ;  22  March 1954) is an eminent  Indian painter. She is the first Indian Artist who has achieved a Post- Graduate Degree in easel painting, from Russia, Academy of Fine Arts, Repin Institute of Painting, Sculpture & Architecture, in St. Petersburg.Post-Independence India has witnessed emergence of many woman painters, who rose to prominence due to their sheer merit and established themselves nationally and internationally. A well-known name among these artists is Surjit Akre. She is an accomplished figurative artist. Surjit Akre traveled throughout her life including Russia, USA, Canada, Italy, Tashkent, Armenia, Nepal and India, deriving heavily from their art styles and cultures. Contents


 * 1) Early life and education
 * 2) Career
 * 3) Awards
 * 4) Shows
 * 5) Publications
 * 6) Further reading
 * 7) References
 * 8) External links

Early life and education   Surjit  Akre was born on 22 March 1954 in Taran Tarn, Punjab, India, in Sikh family. Her birth name was Surjit Kaur. Kaur is a religious surname worn by all female Sikhs. After marriage she adopted  surname  Akre. She spent her early childhood at Kot Mohammed village in the Taran-Taran district of Punjab, with her grandparents.She often used to see her grandmother stitching designer clothes and creating clay designs on walls. It attracted her towards the art world. When she was a kid she always enclose herself in a corner of the house, either busy making dolls or drawing something and it is these dolls which transform into human figures in her works of art. She enjoyed creating folk art and sat for hours together to come out with something inspiring and beautiful. Her father is a writer, who writes in Punjabi. In 1964 the family moved to Delhi and soon Surjit Akre got the admission in Govt. Girls Higher Secondary school. When she got admission in Class 6, there was a subject choice between drawing and Sanskrit. She wanted to choose drawing because it was her favorite but her elder sister did not back her idea and sent her to Sanskrit class. But her heart and mind remained in drawing class so she would at times bunk Sanskrit classes and attend drawing sessions. Seeing her passion for sketching and talent, teachers shifted her to drawing classes. Since her childhood, she was fascinated with new designs and paintings Clay chalk and piece of cloth were favourite playthings of Surjtt Akre and a way of relaxing too after several hours of study. When she was a young girl she would paint the classmate friends, neighbor, sisters, in her house, and get them to model for her. At the age of 14 she has make the commission work. After completing Higher Secondary School from Delhi she took admission in Commercial art and completed in 1975 from the Women’s Polytechnic. In 1975-1977 she worked as commercial artist in the Reforma studio of well -known Indian artist Narender Shrivastava and made illustrations for children books, Poster Design, book jacketing etc. In 1977 she got the Russian Govt. Scholarship in the field of Visual Arts. In 1977 she sailed to Soviet Union and studied Russian language in Tashkent. In 1978 she got the admission in Academy of arts Repin Institute of Painting, Sculpture & Architecture, in Saint. Petersburg and learned art first under the Professor Gorb and later Victor Mikhalovich Areshnikov, Alexander Krilov. In Repin Institute she learned Anatomy study, Combination, related to painting elements, themes, there was a lot of emphasis on ideological education. Additional Russian History, Socialism, Markcism, ethics etc. She drew inspiration from European painters such as Paul Cézanne and Paul Gauguin, Michelangelo, Ivan Aivazovsky, Ilya Repin while working under the influence of her teacher Victor Areshnikov and the company of artist friends and teachers like Moisenko, Pimenov and Andrei Mylnikov. Surjit worked in the studio where the renowned Ilya Repin, whose name the institute now bears, once taught the classic of Russian painting.

Career Surjit Akre’s early paintings display a significant influence of the Soviet art, Social realism modes of painting, especially as practiced in the Repin Institute of Saint. Petersburg in the early 1980s. Her 1985 oil painting,“ Illiteracy eradication", came as a breakthrough for her; the work awarded highly commended at the Annual Post Graduate Works Exhibition, St. Petersburg, Russia. She was the only Indian to have received this recognition.[6] Her works during this time include a number of self-portraits, as well as life in Saint. Petersburg, nude studies, still life studied, and portraits of friends and fellow students.  In 1985 she had her first solo show at the friendship house in Saint. Petersburg. Surjit returned to India in 1986. She joined the Cultural Department, Embassy of the Russian Federation in Delhi as the assistant of the exhibition department. In 1988 she found the ‘Roerich’s Art Society’ affiliated to the RCSC. She curated about 200 important shows. In 1986 she had her major solo show at Shridharani art gallery, Delhi which was highly appreciated by the art critics of India. Kishna Chaitanya the eminent art critic of India described ”The genre studies of men and women at work and leisure are un pretentions but delightful. Her forte is the portrait and some of the paintings are psychologically insightful portrayals.” Renowned art critic K. L. Kaul described, Surjit, shows a very good understanding of the human figure and its anatomy. Though the stances are realistic, there is nowhere a mistake, either in oils or in drawings in conceiving the body as a unified whole. To get inside the skins of people belonging to a different ethos is even for very accomplished portrait makers a hard task. The social realism which is predominant in Russian paintings has cast a shadow on Surjit’s works. But then, of late, she has developed her own colour scheme that makes all the difference. Now she was mainly preoccupied with problems of women in her paintings. The small and large-sized canvases are of people from her surroundings. Woman often finds a place in her works. And her woman is sad, a bit pessimistic. In defining the human-life phenomenon Surjit has taken to subjects like family life and the fearful people of Punjab points to the prevailing conditions in the terrorists-stricken Punjab. This again reflects the sensitiveness of the artist. In another painting a lone woman is surrounded by hounds is symbolic of the condition of a hopeless woman. In drawings Surjit builds the figure with bold and articulates lines. Krishna Chaitanya writes “ The heaviness of the burden of life on the poor is depicted with a unique pathos by Akre Surjit” But her excellent work is not the cup of tea of those who deride both the figurative and the romantic in preference of the modern abstract. They are likely to be ill of ease viewing her work, in spite of its excellent artistic quality and a very warm feel. But then there is no one style of art that could be philosophically justified as the only ruler in the realm of artistic creation. Both the figurative and the abstract have their place in the world of fine art and also their respective appeal. One could not replace the other. So one could keep off the controversy and confine oneself to what has been offered by Surjit It Is noteworthy, as usual, that Surjit manages her technical side as well as her emotional content well, and there is no room left for complaint. It is also interesting to note that nature invariably constitutes the effective backdrop of her human drama, the center of which is, generally a young woman, engrossed in her dreams. In 1989 she painted the terrorists-stricken Punjab, the painting now with the Gallery of Modern Art in New Delhi. She was awarded AIFACS President of India's silver plaque and Dr. M.S. Randhawa memorial cash award for this painting in 1990. Later in 2013 she produced the series ‘I want to live’. , the 2012 gang rape in the city stirred something in her. “I was very disturbed after i heard about the rape. I started painting my anger on canvas. That is how the “I Want to Live collection evolved,” says the painter. Mainly her works dwell upon the human emotions. She depicts the scenario in a more direct and simpler manner, creating the feelings by way of composition of forms. The most important factor in her works is the reflection of contemporary state, ideas and taste which is palpable. The pattern, somehow, tends to take on a shade of Amrita-Sher-Gill’s mannerisms, but lacks the intensity. Surjit’s distinction lies in her method of presenting lifelike forms with innovative background and subtly changing contrast in colours. The feeling, emanate not from any single object but from the composition taken as a whole. Akre Surjit’s works bear a genuine touch of emotion and feeling emanating not from any particular object,but from the work as whole, Concludes Soumik Mukhopadhyaya Knowledge is Power’, in which the artist depicts a woman rowing and pushing aside all the slimy creatures, is painted well with the hind portion in a darker shade while a light falls on the figure from the front. The artist further creates a tension of movement—the figure’s motion is opposite to that of the creatures — which strikes a rather tight chord by which the composition is bound.

Awards 1980- 1st Award State Level composition work in Russian Language at St. Petersburg, Russia. 1983- 1st Award State Level Russian Language & Literature contest between foreign Students studied in Higher Academic Institutions at St. Petersburg, Russia. 1985- Awarded highly commended at the Annual Post Graduate Works Exhibition, St. Petersburg, Russia. 1987- Awarded Sahitya Kala Parishad, Youth Festival, New Delhi. 1989- 91 Awarded Junior Fellowship as outstanding artist by the Govt. of India, Ministry of H.R.D., Department of Culture, New Delhi. 1990- AIFACS President of India’s Silver Plaque and Dr. M.S. Randhawa Memorial Cash Award. 1997- 98 Awarded Senior Fellowship as outstanding artist by the Govt. of India, Ministry of H.R.D, Department of Culture, New Delhi. 2008 - Friendship Medal by the Govt. Of Russia .Russian Centre for Scientific & Cultural Cooperation under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for the contribution of  Indo-Russian Friendship. 2008- Silver Medal for Generosity by the Institute of Art named after K.A. Savitski, Penza city, Russia. 2008- Honoured award for  the contribution Indo-Russian Friendship by the Mayor Penza city .Russia. 2009 - Pushkin Medal by the President of Russian Federation for the Contribution of Indo-Russian Friendship.

2017- International Award named after Nikolai Roerich in nomination Artistic Creativity in Visual Art, by the Govt. of Russia Shows Surjit Akre has had over seventy solo shows including at Friendship House, Art gallery Institute Repin. Museum i. i. Brodskiy, Nikolai Roerich Museum- St. Petersburg, Russia,  Rabindra Bhavan, Russian Cultural Centre, Gallery Ganesha, India Habitat Centre, Indira Gandhi International Airport, Art Indus, Krishna Collection Art Gallery,  Pioneer Art Gallery, Daffodil’s, Ashoka Hotel, Parivartan Art Gallery, Dhoomimal  Art Centre, and Shridharani Gallery- New Delhi,  Artist Centre,  Jahangir Art Gallery. Nehru Centre.,Art land, World Trade Centre-Mumbai, Bharat Kala Bhavan, Banaras Hindu University, Juneja Art Gallery- Jaipur, Vologda Museum-Vladimir, Russia,  Modern Art Gallery- Penza,Russia,  Living Art Centre in Toronto, Indian Embassy in Moscow, Art Chamber-Goa,    LKA-Chennai, Fine Art Museum in  Chandigarh,  Karnataka Chitrakala Parishath, Bangalore, Birla Academy of Art & Culture in Kolkata,

Further reading Good training, a keen eye-R. S. Yadav, Evening News, Delhi, Monday, December 16, 1991, Page 6 In love with human forms-Vijay Bhushan, National Herald, Delhi -22October 1989 Touching up moods- K. G. Sharma, Financial Express, New Delhi, Sunday, November 5, 1989 Discerning an autobiographical note- Soumik Mukhopadhyaya, The Statesman, Delhi, Friday 27 August 1999 Social Narration from Different Angles -K.L.Kaul,, The Statesman, Delhi, 23 March 1999 Painter of everyday life-N.K.Sareen, India Perspectives, December 1999 Concerns that count- The Lexicon Collection 101 Contemporary Artists

References 1.	https://fineartamerica.com › Artists › Surjit Akre › Images 2.	Women’s Era, October (First) 2011 3.	National Herald, 22 October 1989 4.	HT Live Ghaziabad, Friday, October, 04 5.	Smena, 11 March1979, No.60, Soviet Union 6.	Soviet Land, 1985http://www.worldcat.org/title/soviet-land/oclc/7423070 7.

Publications Selected Works (1980-2001) : See Feelingly-Keshav Malik (Author)Published by Navyug Centre for Art and Literature, New Delhi

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