Indian Sculptor Shiv Singh dies at age 77

In the early hours of Friday June 26, renowned Indian sculptor, painter and designer Shiv Singh passed away at the age of 77. The artist was known to have been fighting lung cancer at the time of his death from heart failure. A respected member of the local and international art community, Singh has been twice honored for his many contributions to the field of visual arts in India.

Active as an arts educator, Singh taught at Sainik School, Kapurthala in Punjab from 1963 to 1968. He also taught at Chandigarh’s Government Home Science College and in 1996, retired from his role as professor of arts at the institution. More recently in 2010, the artist was appointed president of the Punjab Lalit Kala Akademi, also in Chandigarh, for which he is a founding member and where he served tenure as chairman from 1999 to 2005. He was closely involved in the establishment of the Punjab Arts Council, which oversees three art academies, several art galleries and seeks to promote the arts by hosting workshops, events and other activities. Singh is well remembered by former students, many of whom attended his funeral on Sunday June 28.

Best known as a sculptor, Singh has exhibited widely at home and abroad with solo shows in India, Denmark, Sweden, Scotland, Germany and most recently, in Canada in 2007. A 2005 exhibition of his paintings was sponsored by and held at the Government Museum and Art Gallery in Chandigarh; the show later traveled to the Indian Embassy in Berlin. Singh has participated in numerous group exhibitions including and the third, fourth and fifth Triennale-India (1975, 1978 and 1981 respectively) and the 2003 Asian Art Biennale in Dhaka, Bangladesh.