Jivya Soma Mashe

This is the first book to be entirely dedicated to the artwork of Jivya Soma Mashe. Through the quality of his work, Jivya Soma Mashe stands comparison with other outstanding enigmatic artists, such as Bill Traylor or Frédéric Bruly Bouabré, who broaden our understanding of the diversity of forms and cultures.

Jivya Soma Mashe (1934–2018) is a legendary figure among his people, the Warli, a tribe of around 300,000 inhabiting an area 150 km north of Mumbai (Maharashtra, India). Its members are animists and speak a language that has never developed a written form. To the best of human memory, it is Warli women who have always painted ritual and ephemeral paintings directly on the walls of their huts. The Warli have developed an extremely basic pictography based on circles, triangles, and squares to express their animist culture and represent their only deity, the mother goddess Palghatta, at the centre of each painting.

After losing his mother at a young age, Jivya Soma Mashe took refuge in drawing, immersing himself in a personal style that first elicited the admiration of his peers and later that of regional, national, and international authorities. Jivya Soma Mashe received his first national award in 1976 – from Indira Gandhi herself. His works featured prominently in the Magiciens de la terre exhibition (Centre Pompidou, Paris 1989) and in the exhibition celebrating the 30th anniversary of the Cartier Foundation (Paris 2014).

Text in English and French.