Satish Gujral

Satish Gujral (25 December 1925 – 26 March 2020) was an Indian painter, sculptor, muralist and writer of the post-independent era. He was awarded the Padma Vibhushan, the second-highest civilian award of the Republic of India, in 1999. His elder brother, Inder Kumar Gujral, was the Prime Minister of India between 1997 and 1998. Early life Gujral was born in Jhelum in the Punjab Province of British India (now in Punjab, Pakistan) into a Punjabi Hindu Khatri family. He was the son of Indian politician Avtar Narain Gujral and the brother of I. K. Gujral , the 12th Prime Minister of India; his sister in law, Sheila Gujral, was a noted Hindi poet. His nephew Naresh Gujral is also a politician. Education Because of his hearing problem, many schools refused admission to Gujral. One day he saw a bird sitting on a tree branch and drew a picture of it. It was an early indication of his interest in painting and later in 1939, he joined the Mayo School of Arts in Lahore, to study applied arts. He moved to Bombay in 1944 and enrolled in the Sir JJ School of Art. In 1947, due to a recurring sickness, he was forced to drop out of school and leave Bombay. In 1952, Gujral received a scholarship to study at the Palacio de Bellas Artes in Mexico City, where he was apprenticed to the renowned artists Diego Rivera and David Alfaro Siqueiros.