Srinagar, June 15: Panun Kashmir mourns the passing of Shri Triloke Kaul, one of the most distinguished pioneers of modern art in Kashmir and a towering cultural figure of the Kashmiri Pandit community. His death marks the end of an era, a life committed to aesthetics, tradition and the civilizational soul of Kashmir.
Kaul was among the first recipients of the Sharda Samman in 1993 at the World Kashmiri Pandit Conference Delhi, honoured alongside icons such as Shri Jagmohan, Pt. Prem Nath Shastri, Shri Nirmal Verma, and Shri Giri Lal Jain. Together, they embodied the spiritual, intellectual, and cultural will of a people confronting exile and erasure.Born in Shala Kadal, Srinagar, and trained at Baroda, he was a founding force of the Progressive Artists Association of Kashmir. As Director of the School of Design, he played a vital role in reviving Kashmiri handicrafts and nurturing a generation of artists. His unique cubist interpretations of Kashmir’s traditional architecture and landscape remain unparalleled, his work a dialogue between geometry and longing.
His forced displacement in 1990 led to the tragic loss of much of his artwork, a personal and collective wound that still bleeds. Yet his legacy lives on, in every line and colour that captured a world we were driven out from, and in every young artist he mentored in spirit and thought.
Panun Kashmir salutes the life and contribution of Shri Triloke Kaul, a man who turned canvas into a cry for memory, and form into an act of resistance. We extend our deepest condolences to his family and loved ones. His memory is now part of our eternal resolve to reclaim, remember and rebuild.
