Professor Dashrath Patel
Series on design teachers in India:
Professor Dashrath Patel, a great visionary in the field of Design, passed away on 1st of December, 2010.
He was awarded Padma Bhushan in 2011 and Padma Shri in 1980 by the Government of India for his contribution in design and design education.
We were fortunate to honour him with the grandmaster Award during the Icograda Design Week in India at IIT Bombay during 2007.
He was a visionary instrumental in shaping the vision of design education at the National Institute of Design (NID), Ahmedabad. His teachings have inspired a whole generation of students and designers. His remarkable contributions to design is now very much part of the history of design in India.
You could see his works at the Dashrath Patel Museum located in Alibagh, near Mumbai.
Sayings Rememberances by Vikas Satwalekar Biography Products Exhibitions Paintings Photography Links Contact Details Links to Graphic Design in India Sayings
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“If you don’t make things for your own surprise, you become like a baker, everyday making the same round bread to sell.”
. . . . . . . . .
“In my first art show in Gallery Barbizon in Paris in 1952,
a gentleman walked in with a Leica M3 hanging like
a necklace around his neck.
After seeing my exhibition he asked me if i took pictures.
I told him that i did not like photography.”
He said “you see well, i can show you how to use my camera”
“I agreed and did exactly what he had suggested.
A fortnight later he invited me to his house for dinner to meet
his wife who had studied Bharat Natyam in India.
That eveningawakened my interest in photography
and also started a fiftyyear friendship
with a legend called Henri Cartier Bresson.”
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“The emphasis is on public need, public economic status, increased and effective deliverance, reasonable price, infrastructural
sustenance, adoptive production methods, etc.
The design and production of products that follow this
design process helps the growth and development of the
country and its people.”
. . . . . . . . .
“An artist who can paint should also sculpt,
should have a feel for dance, music, photography.
Only then can you capture the light and the colour and the
sense of space that make up India.”
. . . . . . . . .
“Never let any established system constrain your imagination
and pursuit of what you believe in.
If you can dream it you can make it happen.”
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In 1960 Dashrath landed in Prague to study industrial
ceramics with the famous Echart. And create art history
by turning ceramic logic on its head.
“I decide to learn from 200 mistakes rather than 200 recipes,” explains Patel.
Given set formulae for firing pottery, Patel settled on
subversion. “If certain colours were to be fired at 1,600
degrees centigrade, I open kiln at 1,200 to see results.
The result? I got 200 new colour palettes.”
. . . . . . . . .
Ranjeet Hoskote, art critic and writer, has this
to say of Dashrath’s collages:
“Patel celebrates the vivid, almost maddening vibrancy
of Indian street life, he dwells on the abstract possibilities of shape and hue afforded by the pure visual sensations.”
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Rememberances by Vikas Satwalekar
My association with Dashrath was over a period of 45 years — from the time he made a very persuasive case for me to join NID as a student, and eventually we were colleagues during the formative years of NID. Dashrath has a significant role in mentoring me and to some extent, shaping my design career.
As a teacher, he taught all of us to dream big, demonstrating through his many projects that nothing was impossible. Logic was not always the driver of the path he followed, but intuition most certainly was, in addition to which he was fortified with an absolute faith in himself. It must be confessed that quite a few of us fell short of this fundamental lesson.
One of the greatest gifts he passed on to all his students and younger colleagues, was the training of one’s eye for critical decision making, be it alignment of two elements on paper or items in an exhibition, plus the minute optical corrections he perceived when dealing with scale and space or composing a frame to tell a story. Each one of us probably excelled in one or two of these design constants, but Dashrath practiced them all with the confidence of the initiated. He did not get formal design training like us, but his time was well spent with luminaries like Cartier Bresson, Ivan Chermayeff, Charles Eames and all the others from whom he learnt through sensitive observation. Dashrath was like a sponge on his many trips abroad and within India, absorbing and mentally cataloguing for future reference all that he felt was noteworthy.
His communication style was unique, and while his sentence construction was not what the grammarians would given as classical examples to young students, his turn of phrase was so apt and visually powerful that any alternative sentence structure would definitely reduce punch and meaning.
Whenever I think of Dashrath, I visualize him in his special Khadi trousers with a Khadi short-sleeved top which was unique to his style – a sort of cross between a half-sleeved shirt and a T-shirt. The fabrics were always muted in colour , gently textured and beautiful. This was his attire for all seasons (later he took to a kurta and veshti), irrespective of temperature or occasion. The accessory of note then was his Leica without which he never went anywhere!
Generous to a fault, everyone benefitted from his largesse, particularly when he returned from his travels bearing gifts for everyone at NID including the drivers and peons. He loved food and loved to share it. I have very fond memories of our visits to Moti Mahal in Delhi, where we both tucked in with gusto before going back to work late nights on exhibition or the other
There are, in any generation, only a handful of individuals, who are blessed with God-given talent to excel in more than one area - Dashrath was definitely one of them. Painting, ceramics, graphic design, exhibition design, photography, architecture, light weight structures, product design and later, even jewellery design, not to mention his wonderful collages and drawings. Dashrath wrote his own rules and broke them with great elan if they in anyway hindered his vision at the time. In many ways, he was fearless.
Very few individuals, particularly those as accomplished as Dashrath, have the ability to build relationships with all manner of people, irrespective of gender, age or social background. Dashrath had this amazing facility that put people at ease with him. Fortunately, this ability he passed on to many of his students.
Of late, we did not have much contact, but when we did meet there was mutual affection and regard while Dashrath regaled me with a whole new set of stories from his latest activities.
He will be missed.
Vikas Satwalekar, Mumbai
‘India Pavilion’, New York World Fair, 1964
‘World is My Family’ Gandhi Centenary Exhibition, New Delhi, 1969
Interior of Dashrath Patel Museum in Alibagh
Links:
http://www.dashrath.in/product_design.php
http://www.design-flute.com/2010/12/02/a-tribute-sdashrath-patel/
http://designscene.wordpress.com/2008/11/26/dashrath-patel/
http://www.saffronart.com/artist/artistprofile.aspx?artistid=96
http://narthaki.com/info/profiles/profl123.html
http://www.indianexpress.com/news/Teacher-and-treasure/720897
http://www.indiatalkies.com/2010/12/dashrath-patels-death-marks-design-era-obituary.html
http://www.dnaindia.com/india/report_a-designer-committed-to-design-for-the-common-man_1475850
| Contact details: | |
| Phone: | (091) 2141 232360 |
| Address: | Dashrath Patel Museum, Bamansure, near Chondhi Bridge, Alibaugh, India Open Saturday and Sunday, 10am to 5.00pm |
| Website: | http://www.dashrath.in |
* Images in this section courtesy the www.dashrath.in