He was well known for his ice cream colours, however there was always something very serene and peaceful about his figures and that’s how on Monday morning, 67-year-old Manjit Bawa left everyone silently after a cardiac arrest as he lay in a coma that had struck him three years ago.

He was born in the year 1941 in the Dhuri village of Punjab. Bawa rose to celebrity status with his unique style in figurative art, using clean lines, strong colours and flat tones, the reason why his work stood out from that of his contemporaries who concentrated on using subdued colours.

Art Impresario's Rajiv Sethi said, “He picked up what was the best in tradition. He moulded it to what is modern and made it his own and with it, he was able to reach out and become an icon.”

Art Critic Alka Raghuvanshi further added, “He was a great person, a large-hearted person. It was a very nice, enveloping feeling to know him. He was a very welcoming personality.”

In spite of traveling across the world, Bawa's native Punjab was always close to his art. That’s where his paintings on the love songs of Heer Ranjha, Krishna legends and the poetry of the Sufi mystics like Bula Shah came from.

More than anything else Manjit Bawa would be remembered as the Sufi within the art world.