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S. G. Thakur Singh (1899–1976) was an Indian artist who painted in oils, pastels and water colourLater career
From Mumbai he moved to Kolkata where he lived and worked for several theatrical companies, working initially at Madan Theatre as a scene painter. The Tagores became his patrons, and the public too got to appreciate his work through reproductions in Bengali journals. His seductive paintings of women, such as After the Bath were especially popular. According to Partha Mitter, author of The triumph of modernism: India's artists and the avant-garde, 1922–1947 and the art critic Krishna Chaitanya, Thakur Singh followed the style of the Bengali artist Hemendranath Mazumdar in painting such themes.
With friends, Thakur Singh organised the Punjab Fine Art Society in Kolkata, and the Society's first Exhibition was held in 1926. The Society promoted Thakur Singh's own works, publishing his paintings in The Art of S. G. Thakur Singh and Glimpses of India, the latter book had introductions by Rabindranath and Abanindranath Tagore. Thakur Singh worked specially for the rulers of Indian princely states on commissions, the rulers of Kotah, Udaipur, Bhopal, Kashmir and others being his patrons.
Thakur Singh moved back to Amritsar in 1931, where he founded the Thakur Singh School of Art. Several of its past students are now achieving recognition as artists or as art-teachers and it has been lately recognised by the Industrial Training Department of the Punjab Government to award a diploma of Art & Craft, teacher's course.
He painted in oils, pastels and water colour. He painted nearly ten thousand paintings, and has won many awards. His paintings hang in museums, public buildings and in private collections around the world.
India honoured him in other ways too. He was nominated to the First Punjab Legislative Council in 1952. He was on the Executive Board of the National Academy of Art (Lalit Kala Akademy) and was Chairman of the Decoration Sub Committee at the 61st Session of the Indian National Congress held at Amritsar in 1956. He was invited to the former USSR and Hungary for solo shows in Moscow, Leningrad and Budapest.
He was commissioned to do many portraits, but it is his landscapes which have won for him popular acclaim.
He received award of Padma Shri in 1973.
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