Phulan Rani (born 1928) is an Indian painter.
Early life and education
Phulan Rani was born in 1928 in Amritsar. She belonged to a well to do Sikh family. Her mother died when she was an infant. Her father,Dr Ram Singh was a doctor. She showed a great interest in fine arts, particularly for painting and dancing. Dr Ram Singh encouraged and nourished his daughter with deep care and pride. “My life really began when I started painting at thirteen,” she writes. “I have wonderful memories of that period making pencil drawings on the margins of the school books, attempting to draw sketches of persons and things that interested me.” She did not receive any formal training in art, but her education is in Liberal Arts and Psychology. She sought to watch other painters at work and slowly trained herself often working late into night. She followed the dictates of their inner urge even when in conflict with external necessity. She devoted more of her time to creative pursuits sometimes even at the expense of pressing her academic demands.
Personal life
Rani married S. Shamsher Singh in 1944. Her husband had a love for fine arts. Together they raised a family and participated in the worlds of arts and letters in Punjab. They ran the New Modern High School in Amritsar, and Phulan taught art as well. Her Father-in-law Kartar Singh Bumra also had an interest in painting. After her marriage when Rani made a painting, Kartar Singh Bumra was much impressed with it and he encouraged her with a cash prize of Rs. 100 and also presented her a book. She was happily married and in the new atmosphere to which great Kerala poet, Maha Kavi Sankara G.Kurup, referred in one of his letters addressed to her as " your happy home where poetry and art lead a blissful wedded life."
Career
Rani started to paint at the age of thirteen. She had a wonderful memories of that period making pencil drawings on the margins of school books. Rani received encouragement in the Simla Fine Art Exhibition held in 1948, her water color painting " The Dancer", done in wash style, took the first prize. Again in 1953, in the Silver Jubilee Fine Arts Exhibition of the Indian Academy of Fine Arts, Amritsar, presided over by Dr. Rajendra Prasad, her well known work, "Twin Sisters Day and Night", received a gold medal and her two other exhibits " Memory and Moonlight" and " Wayside Rest" were widely acclaimed and celebrated.
Her activities associated with her position as the head of High School and as member of numerous social and literary organizations. She is a painter of varied rich spiritual experiences and even in her maturity she has retained the freshness of vision which is the special property of children and poets.
In 1955 she visited Kangra Valley and met Sobha Singh there. She brought her into close contact with the beauty of nature in its lush green terraced rice fields, its turbulent mountain streams, its dashing waterfalls and the endless ranges of the distant hills fading into the blue mist had a great impact on her mind of riotous carnival of beauty turned her overnight into a landscape painter and she started painting the eternally varying moods of this wonderful valley and its subtly evasive colors. In later years Phulan Rani in Amritsar and Sanat Kumar Chatterjee in Simla continued to paint in wash technique. Phulan Rani used the "wash" technique for melting colors to provide a romantic, poetic and emotional content to her works. Within the course of next five years she painted hundreds of landscapes depicting the charm of the valley and an exhibition of these works were organized at Amritsar in 1962 and it was inaugurated by the Speaker of Lok Sabha. Her paintings "Waterfall at Bhavarna", "Macchial Kund in the Evening," "Nohra Richard's Cottage" and " The sunset at Tatehal" are outstanding for their lyrical appeal and mastery over medium of water color. Her love for nature is her love of flowers and her flower studies are among the finest.
During her cultural trip to Europe in 1970 in connection with concerts entitled "Indian Ragas through Music and Painting" at the universities and cultural organizations, she organized exhibitions of her flower paintings; and to the British, a nation of flower lovers, her exhibits made a direct appeal and many of her flower studies were acquired by private collectors and art connoisseurs. Her flower studies " A wild Rose Bush" and "Flowers in conch shell", which, though as subject seem very modest reveal her attitude to the world of nature.