A Film On Famous Painter Sir Sobha Singh

From 1974 a film on famous painter Sir Sobha Singh.- In 1923 he left army and returned to Amritsar, where he opened his art studio. In the same year, he married Bibi Inder Kaur on Baisakhi day. He worked from his studios at Amritsar, Lahore (1926) and Delhi (1931). In 1946, He went back to Lahore and opened his studio at Anarkali and was working as an art director for a film when he was forced to leave the city due to partition of the country. In 1949 he settled down in Andretta (near Palampur), a remote and then little-known place in the Kangra Valley, beginning his career as a painter. Now these days this place is very well known.

During his 38-year stay at Andretta, S. Sobha Singh painted hundreds of paintings. His main focus was Sikh gurus, their life and work. His series on the Sikh gurus have dominated to an extent that his paintings dominate the public's perception associated with Guru Nanak and Guru Gobind Singh.

The portrait he made in honour of the 500th birth anniversary of Guru Nanak in 1969 is the one most people believe to be the visage of Guru Nanak. Sobha Singh painted pictures of other gurus as well, Guru Amar Das, Guru Tegh Bahadur and Guru Har Krishan.

His paintings of Sohni Mahiwal and Heer Ranjha were also very popular. He also painted impressive portraits of national heroes and leaders like Shaheed Bhagat Singh, Kartar Singh Sarabha, Mahatma Gandhi, Lal Bahadur Shastri etc. 

His murals are displayed in the art gallery of Indian Parliament House in New Delhi. The panel depicting the evolution of Sikh history features Guru Nanak with Bala and Mardana on one side; and Guru Gobind Singh in meditation on the other. Sobha Singh also dabbled in sculpture, and did the busts of some eminent Punjabis such as M.S. Randhawa, Prithviraj Kapoor and Nirmal Chandra, and an incomplete head-study of the Punjabi poetess Amrita Pritam. The originals of his works are displayed in his studio at Andretta. General public can also visit his studio in Andretta.

Sobha Singh died in Chandigarh on 21 August 1986.