Mr. Vijay Thakur was born on 16th May 1936 to an Ayurveda doctor in central India. Family scholar emphasis had him and his sibling get early education in their hometown of British ruled India. While his brother pursued literary excellence and went on to become a renowned writer, Mr. Thakur had artistic passion from early childhood.
His artistic skills became increasingly evident through beautiful sketches that adorned the ancestral home and neighborhood walls using piece of charcoal.
His father discerned this and got him supplies to let him color his thoughts.
The moment he picked up the brush, he was unstoppable. His extraordinary skills improved every day and by the time he reached school and was recognized by everyone. While he started making small footmarks in drawing and painting one of the British family friends who loved to witness the spectacle of him drawing at such a tender age. They proposed to adopt him while on the way back to London but his mother was quite firm to not let him go.
There were few unfortunate life-changing events that happened at an early age that flipped the entire life journey for him.
He lost this father at a very initial stage in life and all the money they kept in the bank was turned ashes in a fire accident, which threw a lot of weight on the young shoulders. He never got disheartened and started marching towards his goals and started working in early age.
He used to paint advertisements on commission basis and many times slept on the railway station with nothing but newspaper as a bed sheet.
He was one of strongest believers in hard work and his focus was to transform his passion into profession.
All these incidents and up-downs of life made him stronger, a better artist and a humble human being. He saw life closely and captured it in his paintings and sketches. He was a family man with a soft heart and a solid mind.
After going through the rocky phase of life and completing his schooling he wished to go and study in JJ School of Arts. From onwards his life was a different journey and he flourished a lot in the field of fine arts. On his journey he met so many amazing personalities like Rajneesh Osho, Mohd. Rafi, M.F. Hussain, S.H. Raza, Harishankar Prasai, Major Dhyan Chand, made friends with people like Ram Manohar Sinha who were big names of the Indian as well as the global art scene.
His work “Catching the bird” got published in the art collection of ”1001 reasons to love the earth” which featured artwork from across the globe published by the Korean govt.
In the year 1999, Mr. Thakur received the “veteran artist honor” by the All India Fine Arts and Crafts Society which was presented by the former president of India Shankar Dayal Sharma for his work “Kaala taaveez” which is the highest artist honor felicitated in India.
He also received 3 state academy awards and 5 Lalitkala academy awards which are one of the most reputed titles in the country.
Mr. Thakur also founded and headed the State Art and Craft Society for more than 3 years uniting the artistic souls and channeling the talent of his state.
This helped the art scene to expand and reach deep in and wide out in the country.
Mr. Thakur had more than 100 exhibitions including one-man shows, group shows and workshops throughout the country and abroad. One of the remarkable milestones of his life was when 3 of his exhibitions in Delhi were inaugurated by former Prime Minister of India Mrs. Indira Gandhi. His work has been displayed at various places across the globe with many eminent personalities, institutions like Michigan University, USA, Banaras Hindu University etc..
He was a regular feature in national weekly magazines like kadambini and Saptahik Hindustan for which, he also designed the cover pages.
A journey that began with bits of charcoal left no medium untouched, however, he got the flavor of watercolor, to date, considered the most difficult medium to work with and became a master. He never feared to experiment in his artwork which indeed gave him his unique style and identity.
In his early days, he used to buy used sheets from the flea markets and structured his ideas and observations. It is an amuse that he worked so hard that not much later he could afford drawing sheets made in Paris to do ‘ Wash paintings’ which was a unique method performed by a handful of artists across the globe. He could decorate any surface, be it walls, little notepads, printing sheets, cardboard, drawing paper or huge canvases. Material, size, and texture never came his way of creativity which certainly gave utmost value to the lowest qualities of materials.
His work was driven by observation. He did a lot of memory drawings as Mr. Thakur traveled a lot and considered travelling a hobby for himself. He would go to different parts of the country and observe the way of living, dressing and mostly everything around him. He captured the essence of the place in his mind and projected it in his drawings and paintings in the most appealing manner.
He spent his life in the core of India where the most tribal population resides. He drew his inspiration from the unseen tribal life of central India and traveled to deeper parts of Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Konkan, Chattisgarh, and Jharkhand much of which are now Naxal territories to discover and unfold the simple and isolated lives of the tribal communities. He stayed there for months studying there lifestyle, habitat, attire, culture and lot more. There is not much visual material to show us the lifestyle of the Indian tribes in the core areas but the work of Mr. Thakur can surely be seen as a great way to explore the richness in the culture of these communities.
Mr. Thakur also did a lot of abstract paintings focusing on the themes of love, pain, sufferings of a common man, landscapes and whatnot. His play with shapes and spaces is one of a kind that instantly hooks the viewer forcing him to swim in his artwork and invokes thoughts and emotions as the viewer dives deeper. He always had a vivid palette and communicated through lines. The confidence and maturity in the drawings speak for themselves. He commanded minimalism as well as intricate artworks with equal power.
He possessed another treasure of unique skill that he could draw with his thumb nail by carving lines on a thick paper. This added to his distinctive personality as an artist. In his later days, he stayed in the US and developed a new style of painting which was painting on the delicate Kitchen paper. He drew and painted on the thin kitchen towels with minimal but sufficient use of color which in itself is an amaze. He demolished all the boundaries and proved that art is not about the tools, but about expression and representation.
His paintings and drawings show intricate details of the characters from their dressing to their living. He drew in all sizes from large murals to pocket diaries. His paintings bring out the flavor of Indian tribal culture through expressive and confident lines and contrasting and complementing use of color.