A M Davierwalla

Adi M. Davierwalla was a self-taught sculptor whose practice contributed significantly to the development of post-independence Indian sculpture. Trained as a metallurgist, Davierwalla brought technical knowledge and industrial materiality into his work, frequently using metals, wood, and modern alloys. Emerging in the 1950s and 1960s, his sculptures demonstrate a formal preoccupation with balance, tension, and minimal geometric arrangement. He avoided figurative representation in favor of symbolic abstraction, often drawing from Parsi cosmology, modern physics, and architecture. Rather than monumental public works, Davierwalla’s practice was largely studio-based, producing introspective forms that explored time, transience, and metaphysical structure. Though relatively underrepresented in institutional narratives during his lifetime, his oeuvre offers a critical intersection between science and art, matter and spirit. His contribution highlights a lesser-documented trajectory in Indian modernism of artists engaging material intelligence and abstraction outside dominant academic or nationalist frameworks.