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Ram Vanji Sutar, 1 of India’s astir prolific sculptors, passed distant connected Thursday (December 18, 2025) astatine the property of 100 successful Noida. Popularly called the ‘Statue Man’, helium designed implicit 50 large-scale nationalist works projects implicit a vocation spanning 7 decades, including the world’s tallest statue, the Statue of Unity. Laced with dynamism and method precision, his works were defined by hyper-realistic bronze and chromatic portraits of nationalist icons, and his decease marks the extremity of an epoch successful Indian monumental sculpture.
Born successful Gondur colony successful Dhule territory of Maharashtra, into a humble Vishwakarma family, Sutar showed aboriginal promise. He trained astatine Sir J.J. School of Art successful Mumbai, earning a golden medal. His archetypal inspiration was the caves of Ajanta and Ellora, and helium began his vocation restoring temple sculptures earlier shifting to autarkic monumental works successful the precocious 1950s. Italian sculptors influenced the benignant of drapes successful his work, but arsenic acold arsenic look is concerned, helium would accidental helium learnt it from his trips to Ajanta and Ellora.
Gandhi statues
Sutar excelled successful lifelike portraiture and scale. He mastered the delicate process of getting to the look done the person. The 182-metre, bronze-clad statue of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, an engineering marvel disposable from kilometres away, is an enlarged and enhanced mentation of his earlier realistic sculpture astatine the Ahmedabad airport. Sutar’s creation aligned with the expansive project’s nationalist goals, favouring an Indian creator with a way grounds of chiselling nationalist figures, peculiarly Mahatma Gandhi, for posterity. He was known for creating astir 400 Gandhi statues and busts, including the meditative seated fig astatine the Parliament House.
As a teenager, helium saw Gandhi astatine nationalist meetings and recovered his astir fascinating features to beryllium his forehead, moustache, and pursed lips. Once helium told this critic, “When helium laughed, it was hearty and full. How overmuch helium is loved by radical each implicit the satellite is what is ever truthful touching.” Be it Gandhi with a bladed moustache and Buddha-like aura astatine the Parliament House oregon the 72-feet-tall Gandhi with 2 children astatine Patna’s Gandhi Maidan, Sutar’s each look of Gandhi has its ain tone and personality. A bronze statue successful Berlin, a marble 1 successful Madrid, and a cement fig successful Sri Lanka, Sutar helped dispersed Gandhi’s connection successful antithetic media successful antithetic countries. “I wanted my works connected the Mahatma to represent his spot of purpose, portion done the ‘Statue of Unity’ I wanted to picture the look of the Iron Man,” helium said successful an interrogation with The Hindu.
If Gandhi was an emotion for him, helium created Patel’s statue retired of heavy respect for a antheral who agreed India aft Independence. He would accidental that getting Patel’s accepted shawl, dhoti-clad legs, and sandalled feet close were important to him due to the fact that that was however radical ever saw him.
From Chhatrapati Shivaji to B.R. Ambedkar and Jawaharlal Nehru, from Govind Ballabh Pant to Ram Manohar Lohia and Dalit Prerna Sthal, Sutar’s creation transcended the governmental and ideological divide.
Sutar’s realism and standard won him popularity, but successful avant-garde circles, helium was not afloat embraced, arsenic they saw a deficiency of innovation successful his blimpish approach. Sutar would accidental helium was incapable to make a acceptable of modern sculptures due to the fact that the requests from governments and embassies were ever reverential and ones of large admiration for the subjects.
The Padma Bhushan’s property was a blend of unyielding ambition and quiescent humility. Even successful his 90s, Sutar maintained a rigorous regular routine, moving 8 hours connected clay models, demonstrating carnal and intelligence stamina that belied his age.
In the 1990s, helium established his main workplace successful Noida and aboriginal collaborated with his talented son, Anil Ram Sutar, who helped him align his trade with method advancements. Humble and approachable, Sutar’s workplace reflects this unpretentiousness. By fostering a collaborative environment, helium mentored young sculptors, galore of whom went connected to physique palmy careers nether his guidance.
(The writer is simply a seasoned creation curator and critic)
