Vins (cartoonist)


Vijay Narain Seth, pen name Vins, was an Indian cartoonist and illustrator.

Career

Vins graduated from the J. J. School of Fine Arts, Mumbai, in 1968. While still a student, he went across to the Times of Indiafrom J.J.school of art all most next door to meet & watch cartoonist Mario Miranda at work. He also started freelancing as a cartoonist for Caravan and Himmat magazines while a student.
He was a political cartoonist for the news magazine Himmat weekly from 1965 to 1981, contributing a pocket cartoon Chalta Hai once a week and from 1969 added two other cartoons with national and international comment. Later he started to freelance, doing cartoons on other themes such as science, computers, business, and social issues. He was the first Indian contributing cartoonist for the Indian Edition of Reader's Digest in 1976 when Rahul Singh was its chief editor. Subsequently, he was a freelance cartoonist for the business magazines Business India and Business World and the Indian Express group's business publications. He also contributed to publications such as Science Today <Times of India>publication and the Swiss satirical weekly NEBELSPALTER.
From 1978~1982, he was requested to contribute cartoons to a fortnightly 'treffpunket'. His work appears in . His cartoons have been exhibited in Hungary, Belgium, France, Portugal and Israel,Korea Japan <1998>>. 21 of his satirical cartoons are now part of the online cartoon museum of Aydin Dogan Wakfi in Istanbul Turkey.

Travels

Vins travelled extensively in Europe and met several internationally renowned graphic artists - such as the French cartoonist Andre Francois - whom he counted as influences. He has participated in many international cartoon festivals and exhibited in Europe in the 1990s.

Collections

His cartoons have been made part of the permanent collection at the International Cartoon Museum and the Karikatur & Cartoon Museum, Basel in Switzerland.

Awards