SikhiWiki:Today's featured article/August 21, 2009

From SikhiWiki
Jump to navigationJump to search

SOBHA SINGH (29 November 1901 - 21 August 1986) was a famous Sikh painter, especially well known for his portraits of the Sikh Gurus.

He was born on 29 November 1901 in a Ramgarhia family of Sri Hargobindpur, in Gurdaspur district of the Punjab. His father, Deva Singh, had been in the Indian cavalry.

In 1905, when he was only 4 years old, his mother Bibi Acchran died and some 12 years later, when he was about 16, his father S. Deva Singh died in 1917.

At the age of 15, Sobha Singh entered the Industrial School at Amritsar for a one year course in art and craft. It is said that in 1919 he was present in Jalianwala Bagh at the time of firing.

As a draughtsman in the Indian army he served in Baghdad, in Mesopotamia (now Iraq). On coming back from Baghdad, he married Inder Kaur. Whatever amount he had been sending to his sister from overseas, she had not saved anything out of it for him. They had a real hard beginning due to the stringency of money.

He left the army in 1923 to pursue an independent career in drawing and painting, initially in Amritsar at Bazar Mai Sewan. .....More