Life story:
H.C. Rai (Harish Chandra Rai) born in 1923 at Barielly showed interest in art at the tender age of four. However many obstacles impeded his will to pursue his passion. Inspite of these, he could achieve great heights in Visual arts and Aesthetics. Educated at Government School of Arts, Lucknow under the guidance of Sarvashree A. K. Haldar, N. Roychowdhery, L. M. Sen, B. Sen, ShridharMahapatra and Sir J. J. School of Arts, Mumbai, he worked as a professor of art at Barielly College for about a decade and then was appointed Principal of Government College of Fine Arts, Shimla, where he worked relentlessly till his retirement. During World War II, he served in the Indian Army as an Artist.
Rai made various experiments starting with Bengal School of painting, graduating to highly academic aspects of Portraiture, Landscape, Still life, Sculpture in various media like water colour, pastels, crayons, oils, clay; restricting himself to Portraiture, Landscape and Still Life. He made many large size nudes in clay and oils, most remarkable was making realistic human body in clay, perfectly hollow from within. Such a strenuous process requires a perfect knowledge of human anatomy and various properties of clay.
Rai’s interest in portrait and sculpture led him to explore human body for which he made thousands of sketches. His interest in random sketching started at a very early age of ten and blossomed in the art school, so much so that famous personalities like A. K. Haldar, B. Sen and M. R. Achrekar praised his sketches as far better than their own. Once Mr. A. K. Haldar while praising his pencil sketch of Swami Shivanand, said, “leave apart doing such standard of work, no artist in India has capability even to comprehend the intracacies of this work”. The Chief Architect of Birla Mandir, Delhi even touched his feet after seeing his sketch book.
Rai aimed at perfection in oil colour and water colour. Various royal families, business tycoons, film stars and even ordinary people acquired his work and some commissioned him for portraits. He could work with equal flow and intensity with both hands.
Rai’s paintings show perfect composition and drawing skill with various subtle experiment, hardly visible to an inexperienced eye. His interest in Indian and Western aesthetics, iconography and poetry helped him to maintain high standards in whatever he did. His deep interest in Classical Indian Music and architecture supplement his refinement. Rai is the chief architect of famous Ram Mandir situated in Shimla. Even at the age of 92, his skill in drawing a perfect portraitprofile any is as fresh as ever.
Twice Rai was selected by Government of India for Veteran Artist’s Award. He was awarded Life Time Achievement Award by the Government of Himachal Pradesh, the amount of which he doubled and contributed to Chief Minister’s Relief Fund. His art works are bought and spread around many corners of the world. Rai’s paintings were hung in the Summit Hall, where historical Indira-Bhutto summit took place and they are still hanging there.
Rai devoted himself to his mission and established his spacious and well illuminated 950 sqft studio in Shimla, Himachal Pradesh, which is situated amidst pure natural beauty, a perfect place to experience nature and live with it, where he mostly painted in oils and water colours. Living in tune with nature and having spent his most of life in magnificent Himalayan Range i. e. Himachal Pradesh, he got inspired and interested in forests and mountains in oils in various experimental techniques to give new vistas of woodland and distant mountains in different moods.
“The Simla story, the glow &after glow of the Raj : a sketch book” is a book published by Maria Bros. in 1992 which was co-authored by O. C. Sud. All the illustrations for that book were by sketched by H. C. Rai. The book contains sketches of all the monumental buildings and world heritage buildings of Shimla.
After such a rich ‘arty’ life in the mountains, wherein he received many accolades and appreciation, strangely the greatest contribution of H. C. Rai to the world of art has been after his retirement from Government Service (he painted hundreds of paintings) till he became a victim of an unfortunate accident at the age of 89, after which he has shifted to Mumbai and is living there with his daughter, AmalaRai. His zest for life and art continues here as he sits resolutely every day and paints passionately for four to six hours a day turning out masterpieces as only a great Master can.
[FBW]
