A Painter Paints:  
The Art of Manu Saluja

By T. Sher Singh

Published in Nishaan Magazine
(Volume IV, 2002)

On Saturday afternoon this past June 15th, a prominent audience of Sikhs gathered at the Smithsonian Natural History Museum in Washington D.C. to hear scholars lecture about the state of their cultural heritage. In the evening they returned for a gala dinner to raise funds for the Smithsonian's newly conceived permanent gallery of Sikh art.

As guests filled the main rotunda, the portrait artist Manu Saluja was among them. Wearing a striking green and pink silk sari, she blended in effortlessly with the elegant tableau of professionals in their suits and tuxedos. But more than any other guest, she had reason to be a bit nervous. Arrayed in the center of the room was an exhibition of her oil paintings-11 portraits in all. Her paintings have deep, rich colors and radiant skin tones. People walked over immediately, milling around the images of Sikh men, women, and children on canvas. While some leaned in closely to admire the way she had captured the folds in a pugari (turban), the glint of a ruby, or the embroidery on a shawl, others stayed back to enjoy the overall compositions. Her moment of nerves over, she could enjoy the rest of the evening, mingling, dining and dancing to bhangra music.

Back in her studio in New York City, Manu relaxed in the clothes of a professional painter: T-shirt and blue jeans. "A painter paints, and here's the proof," she said, pointing to the stains on her clothes. The proof is actually all around her. The materials of her projects occupy every corner of the room: pencil sketches, oil soaked rags, 3 coffee cans filled with bouquets of brushes, rolls of canvas, half a dozen head studies in oil and two portraits in progress. The cliché of the artist-as-day-dreamer does not apply. She is nothing if not serious, informed, and diligent. She is an example of the stoic philosopher's advice, "Live first to desire your own good opinion."

Her devotion to her craft has yielded over 20 painting commissions in less than four years. In the world of an artist, that's a career. Her work hangs in prestigious institutions and in the homes of prominent families. In 1999 she was unanimously selected by Columbia University to paint a posthumous painting of Professor Jeannette Fleischner. The life-size portrait is on permanent display at Teachers College in Manhattan. Some of her Sikh clients include Mr. Ishar Singh Bindra, sponsor of the Kuljit Kaur Bindra Chair of Sikh Studies at Hofstra University in Long Island, New York, and Mr. Sonny Singh Chabra, president and CEO of the AMC corporation in New York City. Sardar Gurpreet Singh commissioned portraits of his parents, Dr. and Mrs. Harbans Singh, the latter a finalist in The Artist Magazine's 1999 portrait competition. Her paintings have appeared in House Magazine (Sept/Oct 2001), and the Graphis New Talent Annual (1998).

Born Manveet Kaur Saluja, she is the middle child of Doctors Maan Singh & Iqbal Kaur Saluja. Her parents moved to the United States after their marriage in 1965 in India-her father is from Kanpur, her mother from Kashmir. They expected to stay for a 4 year medical residency and then return home. Circumstances changed, and after all three children were born in the U.S. and began growing up quickly as Americans, they decided to stay. With so many relatives still living in Kanpur, Srinagar, Delhi, and Punjab, Manu and her family have made countless visits to India over the years. Her parents live on New York's Long Island.

Her first formal art lessons were in classes she began at age 11 near the local high school. When it was time to decide on a university, she matriculated at Barnard College, in Manhattan, where she majored in psychology. In 1993 she graduated magna cum laude, winning Barnard's Ida Markevich Lawrence Award for her research in social psychology. "I was exploring a more conventional career path. But when I was looking at 8 years of graduate work for a PhD, I realized it was not what I wanted. I'm grateful for the education I received, it taught me a lot about how to work, how to think. But I remember looking ahead and wondering, 'At the end of my life, will I regret never becoming a painter?' And my answer was a resounding 'yes.'"

She traded the world of research and grant proposals for picture making. "I read a great quote the other day. Something to the effect that the most common advice given to artists is to have something to fall back on. And the merit of that advice is that in following it, it saves you from the rigors of an artistic life."

She studied for six years with John Frederick Murray at the School of Visual Arts in New York City. She worked from live models studying the forms of the human figure, and the basics of light, shadow and composition. Her first success was a stunning self-portrait. Set against a somber burnt umber background, she used a purple chunni with gold trim to frame her face. "I wanted the design to lead the viewer's eye within the painting. I was pondering who I might have been had I grown up in India. After that painting, I knew I wanted to be a portrait artist."

I first met Manu in May of 2001. That February I had been invited to speak at Hofstra University. Mr. & Mrs. Ishar Singh Bindra had recently endowed the Chair of Sikh Studies there, and I was the keynote speaker. I was staying at their house, and in their living room they had portraits of themselves on the wall. The likenesses were astounding. Not only had the artist captured accurately the details of the faces, but their character and spirit were embedded in the paint. When they told me the artist was a young Sikh woman, I immediately asked for her name and number. Later, I invited Manu and her husband to visit me in Canada.

We set a date, and a month later they arrived. We spent two days together, our conversation delving deeply into the topics of Sikh history and art.

I was surprised when she told me that over 60% of her commissions have come from the Sikh community. "I didn't anticipate work from Indians. I was getting calls from Sikh families I didn't know." Sikhs all over North America have come to Manu for portraits. "They're excited to have a very personal piece of art they can pass down to grandchildren and great grandchildren, something that captures them in the way that no photograph can."

The commissions signal both the quality of her work-the referrals keep coming-as well as a rise in the appreciation and need for art in the Sikh community itself. "All my portrait work is fulfilling but I admit feeling special pride when I paint a Sikh." She has added the noble imagery of today's Sikhs to the tradition of portrait art. I encouraged Manu to take things a step further.

In the grand tradition of western painting, Sikh themes are rare, and rarer still is the paint brush held by a Sikh woman. For a future project, we discussed in particular a painting of Maharaja Ranjit Singh.

Ranjit Singh is almost always depicted as an older man in the sunset years of his reign (1799-1839). He is typically shown with a white dari (beard), a Chattra (umbrella) or Nimbus (halo) over his head, wearing a modest, light colored Kurta-Pajama, surrounded by his court members, eyes diverted from the viewer. Often he is seated in profile, conveniently hiding his blinded left eye, the result of childhood small pox.

While it is true that Maharaja Ranjit Singh was at the height of his power in his later years, we must not forget his legendary reputation as cunning soldier. Ranjit Singh consolidated the misl clans, seized Lahore, and established his rule as the first Sikh monarch of Northern India-all by the age of twenty-one. He was one of the only rulers to conquer large portions of Afghanistan and hold them for any length of time. Yet Ranjit Singh the warrior, the "Lion of Punjab" has hardly ever been depicted.

"To show him with compelling realism, I've prepared the composition as faithfully as if I had a flesh and blood client-as if he had posed for the portrait himself." Yet there was little direct visual reference material for her idea-no photographs or drawings of him as a younger man exist. "As a realistic artist, it's crucial to understand the subject sculpturally. I couldn't rely on anything arbitrary. The objects in the portrait-his armor, clothing, throne-all must be arranged and lit with great care. For this kind of painting, I had to physically replicate his costume, battle accoutrements, and environment."

In July 2001 Manu flew to London, and, with generous introductions by Harbinder Singh Rana (of the Maharaja Dalip Singh Centenary Trust) she met with influential scholars and top museum curators. Her first stop was The Victoria & Albert Museum to see Ranjit Singh's throne. "Having only seen photographs of it in books, his golden Throne was thrilling in person. The intricate scalloped and floral design is simply gorgeous. I spent hours sketching and photographing it from every angle I thought useful for the painting."

Next, she headed across town to the Wallace Collection, where she met arms expert David Edge for a behind-the-scenes tour of Sikh arms and armor. "I was permitted to take pictures of Sikh armor and weaponry including one of Maharaja Ranjit Singh's shields, a Turban helmet worn by Sikh soldiers, and their swords, Kandas, breast plates and arm guards."

In between her regular portrait commissions, Manu spent the year in a whirlwind of preparation, assembling her props, commissioning armor, and a miniature version of Ranjit Singh's throne. Once the items were ready, she held several photo sessions with a Sikh model . When I saw her this past September she had created several color sketches in oil to fully work out the painting's proportions and design. Her commitment to the project has been inspiring.

Since her exhibit at the Smithsonian, Manu's work has caught the eye of art collectors like Dr. Narinder Kapany of The Sikh Foundation in Palo Alto California. February 2003 marks the foundation's 35th anniversary and opening of the Satinder Kaur Kapany Gallery, a permanent collection of Sikh art at the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco, California. Dr. Kapany has invited Manu to speak as one of five women representing the vanguard in contemporary Sikh art.

For now she is submerged in the task of completing Maharaja Ranjit Singh. When asked if she's concerned about historical accuracy, and what the reaction of Sikhs will be to the painting, she answered, "Ranjit Singh has transcended into mythology, he embodies our strength and ideals as a people. It will be exciting to see an image of someone so revered that's never been done before, imagined at an earlier stage of his life, with different challenges still ahead. Only art can do that."