Kurchi Dasgupta

Biography: An MA in Comparative Literature and a former CEO of the Society for the Preservation of Satyajit Ray Films, Kurchi Dasgupta (b. 1974) has also done brief publishing of books and CDs combining arts. She has done illustration and written screenplays. She has done two novels into English from Bengali, among others, and has finally returned to painting. Based in Calcutta, working out of Kathmandu, she specialises in abstracts and miniatures; in gouache. "In all my efforts I have tried to recontextualise everyday reality by drilling into the depths of the ‘sub’ or ‘Ur’ conscious, and try and provide the viewer/participator with a new set of tools with which s/he can perceive and interpret existence. Painting, to me, represents more a journey into the ‘self’ and its socio-political location, than most other things. It is an effort to detect and crystallize those common elements that form the basis of our selves across borders. I am currently working towards developing a more exact and laden visual language that would help me recreate my perceptions (of this very chaotic world and therefore, an equally troubled self) for the viewer/participator in a more easily accessible and relevant manner." Country: India Birthyear: 1974 Media: other, gouache Style: abstract Subjects: landscapes and nature

Devajyoti Ray

Devajyoti Ray

1974 Gulbarga, Karnataka, India

Artwork By Devajyoti Ray

Devajyoti Ray’s work does not require any external help to view, a triumph of simplicity yet lucid in its presentation, the images wait to enter into a dialogue with the viewer. Though it appears simple, the depth of his understanding is visible in the vivid portrayal of his images springing out from the canvases in poetic fervors. The use of colors to bring out the subtlety of his work is outstanding. His experiences with different mediums and styles over a period of time, experimentations and maturity as a thinking artist enabled him to create his works in the style of pseudo realism, where he is at total ease to express to the viewer.... the captured nuances set in daily life evoking nostalgic memories. The composition of jugalbandi where the flautist and the accompanist attain a perfection that is cherished by the aesthete. The compassion of the couple for the goat, the contemplation of the young girl, so common to be identified with, the conversation of the two adults, the transcending of the mridangam player all bear testimony to these unique works combining simplicity with a vivid sensitivity and a visual treat for the viewer. Devajyoti’s pseudo realistic works is definitely a fresh infuse in the art scenario.

Robinson
Art Appreciator

Devajyoti is one of the emerging talents, who had started under the tutelage of Shri B R Panesar in Kolkata (1993). He has since then diversified into many streams doing water colours, oil on canvas, installations and now acrylic on canvas. However, what has propelled him to the forefront of Indian art-scene is his new style of Pseudo realism where colours of fantasy mingle into offbeat shapes to create a realistic illusion. His Pseudo realistic works have been widely appreciated by various art critics in print media.

My primary preoccupation is with colours and shapes. I have painted on various issues that concern today’s generation. Yet every time I approached a subject, I always tried to give it a pseudo real perspective.
Pseudo realism is not just a way of approaching reality via abstraction; it is also a commentary on today’s world. Everything around us in way is pseudo real. Sartre had said, "year after year, a monkey’s mask on a monkey’s face". Sarte had not survived till 2000. Otherwise he would have added, “and now monkeys want other monkeys to believe that they are monkeys."
The world had always been real, but pseudo real is the world of our imagination, where we love to stay, project our ideas and thrive. I paint that reality.
I use colours of my choice, which happens often to be the choice of my viewers. Yet with such abstract bold colours, I aim to create to believable comprehendible reality. I hope I am successful in what I want to do.

Devajyoti Ray

Paritosh Sen

Paritosh Sen Paritosh Sen was born in Dhaka, now in Bangladesh, in 1918 in a noted Ayurved's family The world of nature, colour, movement fascinated him from his childhood as is clear from his collection of autobiographical vignettes, Jindabahar Lane, named after his Dhaka address. After finishing school, Sen ran away from home to join the Madras Art School headed by Devi Prosad Roy Chowdhury. His fellow-students their were K.C.S. Panicker, Prodosh Dasgupta, Gopal Ghosh and others. After finishing art school, Sen taught art at the Daly college in Indore. In 1943, he along with his friends formed the Calcutta group. In 1949, Sen left for Europe. In Paris, he studied at Andre Lhote's school, Academie Grand Chaumier, Ecole des Beaux Arts and Ecole des Louvre where he studied the history of painting. The sojourn abroad provided an exciting exposure. A meeting with Picasso left a deep impression in 1954, he returned to Calcutta. To earn a living, he joined the Netarhat School in Palamau, near Ranchi, as an art teacher. After a short stint there, Sen returned to Calcutta. He joined the newly opened school of printing technology as professor of design and layout. In the early '60s, he went abroad to England and France. He was commissioned by the French government to design Bengali typography based on the script of Rabindranath Tagore. This was an interest that surfaced once again in the '80s. between 1970-7 1, he received the Rockefeller grant and went to New York. On his return, he created an installation on violence. Between 1981-82, Sen had been Artist-in-Residence at Maryland Institute of Art, Baltimore. In 1985, Sen was invited by the National Institute of design at Ahmedbad to be an artist- in-residence. He taught a course in illustration. During his stay there he used the English translation of a piece from Jindabahar Lane call A Tree in My Village and made a folio-sized publication from it. It was a stimulating experiment where he wrote and illustrated the piece in ink on sensitised paper which acted as a negative and thereby excluded the negative film. It was one of the most fascinating exercises in 'marrying text with image. In the course of his career, Sen's style of painting has undergone many changes. From the stylized to the voluminous, expressionist figures, he has traversed a long way. But there are continuities. For example, the drawing with bold, vigorous strokes, the use of volume m the figuration and sharp irony have been impressive elements in his work. Since 199 1, his work has become more sensuous and he uses more exuberant colors. Paritosh Sen lives and works in Calcutta.

Protesh Sen The guessing game Acrylic on paper 1995 Protesh Sen Young Boy chopping chicken Acrylic on paper 39" x 39" 1983 Protesh Sen Music Lovers Oil on paper 60" x 60" 1982

 

Jitish Kallat

Born 1974 in Mumbai, India
Work and lives in Mumbai, India

Jitish Kallat’s practice combines painting, photography, and collage, as well as large-scale sculptures and multi-media installations. Jitish graduated from the Sir J.J. School of Art, Mumbai, in 1996, part of a group of precocious and ambitious young artists who have been instrumental in globalising Indian contemporary art. Kallat honed his interest in painting through embracing abstraction within the tenants of high modernism, learning to exploit colour to elicite an emotive response. Audacious and self confident, Kallat firmly rejected abstraction and any loyalty to high modernism by the time of his first solo show, within two years out of art school. Entitled PTO, the show was the first in a series of exhibitions which co-opted the allegiance of multiple gallery spaces, in this case spanning north and south Mumbai.

Kallat’s early works incorporated references to the style, form and thematic concerns of urban billboards, which were interwoven with popular culture, news stories, media events and the socio-economic and political anxieties of the citizens of Mumbai. Jitish has since been widely recognised for figurative paintings highlighting the convergences of cultural dualities of Mumbai. Kallat’s pieces are large-scale, ambitious presenting a sleek portrayal of the politics, poverty, dirt and grime of Mumbai. Dystopic narratives of urban life, are portrayed as romantic or heroic to achieve the high gloss of globally acceptable contemporary art.

With his series Rickshawpolis in 2005, Kallat initiated his engagement with vehicles and snarled traffic as metaphors for modern cities like Mumbai, Shanghai and Dubai. For Kallat rickshaws have become a recurring motif for city dwellers and urban dissonance. For his suite of photographs titled 365 Lives, he documented dented skeletal remains of vehicles, each dent corresponding to a wound. His bold, somewhat confrontational style recalls the energy and audacity of his native Mumbai whilst his signature works contain an underlying edge of brutality.

Kallat’s use of lenticular prints began with Death of Distance, 2006, a photographic series that critiques the vast, insatiable twenty four hour news channels broadcast in India. A giant rupee coin stands on edge next to a series of lenticular prints juxtaposing two news reports shifting from one text to another depending on the viewer's position. One reports the launch of a new telecommunications plan, announcing "call anywhere in India for one rupee"; the other recounts the story of a young Indian girl who committed suicide because her mother could not give her one rupee to buy a school meal.

A lenticular print displays a succession of images within a single frame. A change in the viewing angle can convey the illusion of three dimensionality creating a sense of animation. The truth is not in any single image but is situated somewhere in between. In the photo pieces Cenotaph (A Deed Of Transfer), 2007, Kallat documents the demolition of a row of illegally built slum dwellings which were situated on the Tulsi Pipe Road, part of his childhood drive to and from school. The slum dwellers were re-located as a result of widening roads and adding pavements while modernising Mumbai. Cenotaph documents the stages of the removal of the slum-dwellers which when viewed from different angles, extends the narrative. In turn the documentation itself may be viewed as an optimistic part of urban development, better infrastructure, wider and cleaner roads or it may be viewed as an act of brutality and violence against voiceless individuals who are deemed to stand in the way of urban progress.

Savita Apte

Mukul Dey

Mukul Dey: Pioneering Indian Graphic Artist

— Satyasri Ukil

Mukul Dey working on his copper plate at Chitralekha, c. 1982
Photo: Keisuke InanoIndian painter-engraver Mukul Chandra Dey (1895-1989) — better known as Mukul Dey — was an important personality of his time. A student of Rabindranath Tagore’s Santiniketan School during the early years of the 20th century (c. 1906-1912), he left his mark as a pioneer of drypoint-etching in India.
An extremely sensitive artist (perhaps temperamental at times), he chose an essentially Western medium to depict subjects of Indian life and legends from a common man’s viewpoint. The river scenes of Bengal, the baul singers, the bazaars of Calcutta or the life of Santhal villages in Birbhum — all these attracted his attention and he recorded his vision with deep feeling and a rare sureness of hand.
Mukul Dey is also remembered for his superbly executed portraits of the rich and the famous — the Tagores, Albert Einstein, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, Sven Hedin, the Tatas Drypoint portrait of Abanindranath Tagore by Mukul Dey, c. 1937. Original print signed in pencil by Tagore bottom left corner, both in Roman and Bengali script. Artist’s signature and seal on bottom right corner. The seal impression depicts Lord Vishnu’s foot-marks
Photo: Mukul Dey Archivesand many more. Coming from a family that had seen difficult times, he had to learn his skills well for his survival. He states in My Reminiscences,

“In 1918, I realised a long cherished dream by visiting the Ajanta Caves. I at once made up my mind to copy the frescos but as I had no money, I had to travel to various cities of southwestern India drawing portraits of rich men and selling my work for a few rupees only.”

Mukul Dey deserves to be remembered not only as an important practicing artist but also as an art collector. Passionately interested in the various forms of folk arts and crafts, as well as the works of his contemporary Neo-Bengal School artists, he was an intrepid collector and promoter of their creations.
During his tenure as the first Indian principal of Government School of Arts, Calcutta (1928-1943), Mukul Dey organized at least two very important exhibitions at the school premises.The artists being Jamini Roy and Rabindranath Tagore. 
Having interacted closely with such Japanese and European masters as Yokoyama Taikan, Shimomura Kanzan, Kampo Arai, Yashiro Yukio, Stanislav Szukalski, James Blanding Sloan, Roi Partridge, Muirhead Bone, Frank Short, Henry Tonks and George Clausen, Dey’s horizons had widened enough for him to appreciate the genius of Jamini Roy and thus sponsor Roy’s first ever solo exhibition in September/October 1929 in Calcutta.
Coming through the Rye, drypoint by Mukul Dey
Photo: Mukul Dey ArchivesSimilarly, much before the Western art world took any cognizance of Rabindranath Tagore as an artist, Mukul Dey had wanted to put up his show as early as 1928. However, as Tagore himself was keener to get recognition from the cultural arena of Paris and Berlin first, this particular exhibition had to wait till the beginning of 1932.
Mukul Dey was my grandfather, and among my cache of childhood memories is the image of him sitting at his desk at Chitralekha, the house he built in 1928, amidst a sea of papers. Day after day, lost to the world outside, he would pore over them, sifting and occasionally filing away sketches and drawings, old photographs, original correspondences, period newspaper clippings, exhibition and collection catalogues and stacks of very rare lantern slides of traditional Indian art. He was passionately attached to papers and images; these were things he could never destroy. For years together, he went on adding to his mind-boggling repository of visual and textual information.
This was unusual for that time and place, and indeed contrary to the general Indian trait of ahistoricity – this sense of history, this desire to preserve every tiny fragment of our cultural fabric.
Over time, Mukul Dey’s priceless collection became fragmented and scattered all over Europe, Asia and the USA. A major part of his collection of Kalighat pata paintings, which numbered 451, was acquired by W.G. Archer for the Victoria and Albert Museum way back Drypoint tools used by Mukul Dey
Photo: Mukul Dey Archivesin the 1930s. Similarly, his masterful copies of the Ajanta, Bagh, Sigiriya and Sittanavasal frescoes went to the British Museum and Japan. Most of what remained in India decayed and degenerated with the passage of time. 
Dey never lost hope. He was hopeful to the very last that some day someone from his immediate society would lend him a hand to preserve his collection in a museum or a gallery. But it was a dream he was never to fulfill in his lifetime.
Mukul Dey passed away in 1989.
Midnight Cry, Mukul Dey, c. 1916-17
Photo: Mukul Dey ArchivesIt is only fairly recently that we have discovered that all he left behind do not tell his story alone. These fragile documents are capable of taking a researcher on a rare trip to a fascinating period of our cultural history that is yet to be fully explored and interpreted.
This is extremely important because this material deals with our immediate past – a past that is not at all remote and therefore still capable of influencing our present in a positive way. And, as they say, those who don’t learn from history are condemned to repeat it.
Throughout his life Mukul Dey cast around for those essentially positive, virile qualities of traditional Indian art and culture which retain their flavour and relevance over the passage of time. What he sought was an inter-cultural cross-fertilization of ideas that would infuse an enriched aesthetics into our everyday Seals used by Mukul Dey
Photo: Mukul Dey Archivesexistence. As Mukul Dey stated in his January 22, 1932 speech at the Rotary Club, Calcutta:

“There are in India at present three types of thought — one would have everything European bodily transplanted into India; another would have nothing to do with anything that savoured of Europe, the third was not afraid to engraft the best from foreign sources for the enrichment of the indigenous stock.”

Mukul Dey’s vision belonged firmly in the third category.

Shantanu Ukil

Shantanu Ukil: Profile of the Painter

— Satyasri Ukil

Shantanu Ukil at Chitralekha, Santiniketan, 2005
Photo: Vineet SabharwalIt is ideal to write something on Shantanu Ukil and his art recounting the days of early 20th century advent of Bengal School in northern India and the pioneering contribution of Ukil Brothers in making the new capital of modern India a prominent centre of cultural activities during pre and post-independence years. Without these details the narrative would be kind of incomplete.
Beginning of Modern Indian Art in Delhi
Shantanu’s father Sarada Ukil (1889-1940), an early student of Abanindranath and originally from Bikrampur, Dhaka had migrated to Delhi in 1918. He subsequently joined his friend Lala Raghubir Singh’s Modern School (est. 1920), located at 24, Daryaganj, as its first art teacher. Later, at his then residence 287 Esplanade Road in Chandni Chowk, Sarada established his modest studio and an art tuition centre for aspiring youngsters to initiate them into the nationalistic aesthetics of Abanindranath Tagore’s Bengal School.
At the Doorway, black ink on asbestos sheet, Shantanu Ukil
Photo: Mukul Dey ArchivesHistorically, this was the first ‘bold effort” to sow the seeds of modern Indian art at an arid geographical location, which was then “virtually a desert culturally”.
Promoting Indian Artists & Craftsmen
The Ukil’s School of Art that Sarada established in 1926 had an adjunct, All India Fine Arts & Crafts Society (AIFACS)… which, conceptually, was an ancestor of today’s state-run Lalit Kala Akademi, with constant activities to promote Indian artists and craftsmen with their works.
Thus during 1930s, when Shantanu was just a youngster, the Ukil’s household in New Delhi was the hub of important affairs, as far as the art scenario was concerned in the new capital of British-India.
Recounting those days, Dr. M. S. Randhawa, the noted scholar on Indian art wrote:

“Organization of an annual art exhibition in 1930 was his (Sarada Ukil’s – Ed.) next venture. This art exhibition which is a landmark in the history of promotion of art in New Delhi was opened by the Viceroy Lord Willingdon and was patronized by the Chief Commissioner Sir John Thompson. It was a major venture in popularizing art and 1500 works by over 400 artists from all over India were displayed. (vide. Roopa Lekha, Vol. L, No.s 1 & 2, 1978-79, p.7)”.

Kunti Deserting Karna, Acrylic wash on paper, Shantanu Ukil
Photo: Mukul Dey Archives Samarendranath Gupta of Lahore, Asit Kumar Haldar of Lucknow, Sailen Dey of Jaipur, Hemendranath Mazumdar from Patiala and Mukul Dey of Calcutta, amongst many others, who had often frequented the Ukils in New Delhi.
It was also during these years (1936-37) that Barada Ukil, Sarada’s younger brother and Shantanu’s uncle, had promoted Amrita Shergil at one of the AIFACS shows in the hutments adjacent to Connaught Place, subsequent to their trip in southern states of India together. This was much before Shergil came in mutually intimate and appreciative contact with Jawaharlal Nehru. (vide. N. Iqbal Singh, ‘Amrita Sher-Gil’, in Roopa Lekha, vol. LIII, No.s 1&2, 1982, p.58).
Publication of Roopa Lekha
Meanwhile, another very important step to popularize art was taken by the Ukil brothers. In July 1939, and after the publication of Rupam was discontinued in Calcutta, the AIFACS came out with their bi-annual illustrated art journal Roopa Lekha (Vol. 1, Serial No. 1)…the first ever periodical from northern India entirely devoted to the cause of fine arts.
The editorial board consisted of Ananda K. Coomaraswamy, James H. Cousins, Ajit Ghose, Karl Khandalavala, G. Birbhum Village, watercolour on paper by Shantanu Ukil, 1993.
Photo: Mukul Dey ArchivesVenkatachalam and Barada Ukil. The periodical’s cover was designed by Kumudini Devi, Ukil’s mother, which carried typical traditional Bengali motifs such as lotus, conch-shell and Goddess Lakshmi’s footmarks. Reckoning by any standard this was a very major event in the modern Indian art history…as important as the publication of O. C. Gangoly’s Rupam from Calcutta.
Shantanu Joins his Father’s School
Sarada’s premature death in 1940 was a heavy blow to the Ukil family and their activities. While the joint family had shifted to Calcutta and Varanasi temporarily, the Ukil’s School of Art (later Sarada Ukil School of Art) and AIFACS managed its existence in New Delhi with the active and faithful support of the prominent disciples of Sarada, Anil Roychowdhury, Indu Bhushan Ghosh and Sushil Sarkar.
Landscape of Delhi with Turco-Afghan Monument, watercolour on paper by Shantanu Ukil, 1993.
Photo: Mukul Dey ArchivesShantanu, Sarada’s eldest son and the only one who took to painting according to family tradition, had taken his first lessons in Indian painting from these three disciples of his father on his return to Delhi in 1946.
He joined his father’s art school as a student of both Indian and western painting, and was fortunate to train under illustrious Sailoz Mukherjea, who was in the faculty of Sarada Ukil School of Art (erstwhile Ukil’s School of Art) at 66/1 Queensway, New Delhi. From 1946 till 1951 Shantanu remained a student here.
The First Break-through for Shantanu
The first major break-through came young Shantanu Ukil’s way when right after the diploma his works were included in the exhibition of Indian art in Japan, which was opened at the Ueno Shahjahan’s dream of the Taj, Shantanu Ukil
Photo: Mukul Dey ArchivesNational Museum, Tokyo on July 22, 1952 by Shigeru Yoshida, the then PM of the island nation. In quick succession, his works were also included in one of the biggest Indian art exhibitions that had ever taken place on a foreign land. This was in July-August, 1953.
The Indian art exhibition in Soviet Russia in 1953 was significant for several reasons. Quite unlike the 1946 exposition at South Kensington, London, this exhibition in Russia had included several works by the contemporary young artists of the land in its grand entourage. It was clear that the organisers were keen to revive the Indian art scenario by promoting the younger generation of artists who had fresh and newer outlook.
This was important because at that time independent India was just a seven year old nation. Also, if not anything else, this exhibition gave a clear indication of Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru’s foreign policy with its cultural overtone and emulation of Soviet socialism as the desirable form of economy that India could strive for.
Important news coverage of this monumental show came from art critic Shibdas Banerji’s pen in Amrita Bazar Patrika, in July 1953, which is worth more than a passing mention.
Shantanu’s Paintings Receive Acclaim
Baul Singer, oil on canvas, Shantanu Ukil
Photo: Mukul Dey ArchivesThe Indian art exhibition in Soviet Russia was one of the first major events in Shantanu Ukil’s career. His Indian paintings (Bengal School) got international acclaim and found a place in the permanent collection of the famed Hermitage Gallery of Moscow. Back in India, a series of important exhibitions followed, with much appreciation from the press and foreign and Indian art lovers.
In quick succession his works were acquired in the collections of Maharaja of Bikaner, Maharaja of Baroda, Mysore Art Museum, Chandigarh Museum, Prime Minister’s Secretariat, Ministry of Information & Broadcasting and Rashtrpati Bhavan between 1951 to 1968.
Meanwhile outside India, apart from Moscow, his paintings were collected in Museum of Finland, Denmark, Cairo, Poland, China, Japan, USA, Italy, Switzerland, Romania and scores of other countries.
Transition of an Artist
Though trained in the western style of painting under such stalwart as Sailoz Mukherjea, until late 1950s Shantanu Ukil executed his works primarily in the “wash technique”, as Landscape of Delhi with Turco-Afghan Monuments. watercolour on paper by Shantanu Ukil, 1993.
Photo: Mukul Dey Archivespopularized by Abanindranath Tagore and Bengal School.
Quite like his father, he is essentially a colourist, but with bolder drawings and swifter execution, which have been the characteristic of his Indian paintings. Hindu, Buddhist and Muslim legends, folklore and life, along with the aura of Mughal Delhi’s afterglow influenced Shantanu deeply.
Shantanu was keen to depict the life and colours of Delhi villages amid the shades of cool greens under the neem trees. Or, perhaps the splashes of vermillion and the cascading gold on the branches of gulmohur and amaltaas amid the ruins of Lodi’s Delhi. These visual sensibilities were undoubtedly the aesthetic seeds that Sailoz had sowed in his student’s mind. They sprang to life at a later point of time in Shantanu’s career.
Mother and Child, Shantanu Ukil
Photo: Mukul Dey ArchivesOn the other hand, the romanticism and the inherent rhythm of the aboriginal Santhal life in Bengal and Bihar so inspired Shantanu that he created some of his finest works on their life, while often experimenting with medium, form, pigments and surface texture.
Today, the aged artist fondly recounts his days in New Delhi when at the premises of Sarada Ukil School of Art, he along with his contemporaries, Saradindu Sen Roy, Sukumar Bose, Arup Das, Ramnath Pasricha, Biren De, Abani Sen, Bimal Dasgupta and Harinarayan Bhattacharya would happily indulge in their respective artistic pursuits, often going out together to do sketches on life in Delhi villages. These villages later got absorbed into the burgeoning metropolis of present New Delhi.
Also, there was the occasional but magnetic presence of Manishi Dey as well, with his monumental and sensitive works on Bengal refugees. Manishi was a close friend of Sailoz and the stories of their bohemian life together could easily fill volumes!
Shantanu has a very great regard for this master artist, about whom he says, people seldom understood!
Famine, Shantanu Ukil
Photo: Mukul Dey Archives(Unfortunately, in an era of all-encompassing consumerism, it seems there are few who could possibly be interested in such anecdotes…more so, when as a nation we have done so little in the areas of preserving our oral history and its proper documentation!—Ed.)
There was a time when Sarada Ukil School of Art was a center of much important art activities. Here, eminent artists and scholars such as Stella Kramrisch, artist Qi Baishi of China and Nicholas Roerich visited to exchange their thoughts and techniques with Indian counterparts. In 1952, the AIFACS had organized the Chinese Art Exhibition when Qi Baishi visited India and the interaction Shantanu had with him is still fresh and cherished in his memory.
In 1956, India celebrated 2500 years of Lord Buddha’s Parinirvana in a big way when prominent artists of the day were involved in an important exhibition, where Shantanu Ukil and Saradindu Sen Roy had opted for Italian egg tempera process to do their paintings on the guidelines from fabled treatise of Cennino Cennini (1370-1440), as translated by C. J. Herringham of Ajanta Frescoes fame (India Society, 1915). Their visual idiom was strictly according to the tenets of Indian Shilpashastras and Tagore’s Bengal School.
Rythm of Life, Shantanu Ukil
Photo: Mukul Dey ArchivesHowever, just a year later, in 1957, there was a drastic change in the flavour and quality of Shantanu’s creative output. While visiting his in-laws (Mukul Dey and his wife Bina) at “Chitralekha”, Santiniketan he came into contact with artist Kiron Sinha and his Austrian wife Gertrude at their architecturally stimulating studio-cum-gallery amid the undulating khoai land adjacent to their compound.
Kiron, though an ex-student of Kala-Bhavana, was far removed from the visual language of Nandalal Bose and his batch of students. Instead, he was quite a rebel in his thought and life-style and had vigorously experimented with the neo-Impressionistic imagery with Paul Signac and Seurat’s pointillism.
Kiron was bold and had a fabulous palette, recalls Shantanu - light mauve, emerald, umber, vermillion and black. Kiron’s favourite subject were the Santhals of Birbhum - in all their vitality, flesh, sweat and blood! Shantanu was inspired deeply by Kiron’s works.
Santhal Life, Shantanu Ukil
Photo: Mukul Dey ArchivesThus, from the late-1950s and during the following decade one finds a pronounced change in Ukil’s visual idiom. The delicate yet controlled lines and subtle much-washed hues of Bengal School gradually gave way to the forceful spatula-work of thick impasto with mysterious chiaroscuro of the artist’s immediate environment. It was as if Shantanu got a sudden and tremendous freedom from the shackles that held him fast to rock hard traditions.
It was a freedom that had compelled him to explore an essentially newer palette! Similarly, the artist’s earlier inspiration from India’s Hindu and Buddhist past were gradually replaced by the images from his direct personal experience. He transformed the emotions into vermillion, deep purple, mauve, viridian, gamboge and umber directly, while forming a vigourous reading habit to keep abreast with literature, history and philosophy.
His marriage with Mukul Dey’s daughter Manjari, who did her research in the areas of foreign influences on ancient Indian history and culture from Visva-Bharati University, was a constant source of much inspiration, recalls Shantanu.
Shantanu got an opportunity to study the various trends of European art in first-hand when he was included in an AIFACS organized cultural delegation that attended the 4th Centenary Celebrations of Dresden Museum in erstwhile East Germany in 1960-61. Back in India, he organized his first show with paintings done in oil in September 1963, New Delhi.
At the pond, Shantanu Ukil
Photo: Mukul Dey ArchivesWhile reviewing the exhibition the noted critic and art historian Keshav Malik wrote in Thought (September 14, 1963):

“The first thing that strikes as one enters the hall housing this exhibition is the undoubted skill of the painter. Every work has a neat finish and nothing is left in any doubt; no self-indulgence here in any inadvertent or conscious confusion of forms. And yet, it will be seen that Shantanu is neither an illustrator nor a traditional.”

Truly, that was the beginning of a journey in an entirely new direction. An aesthetic journey that is rich with the artist’s visual experiences intertwined with the joys and sorrows of his life - a journey the artist is still continuing with.
Forever in search of the nuances of light, colour, texture and form, Shantanu Ukil had travelled widely in his country and abroad to enrich his mind. In 1982 he was invited to Japan on a Japan Foundation grant to deliver lectures on Indian art. This lecture series at Fukuoka, Kyoto and Tokyo was much appreciated.
Ukil feels that an artist is absolutely free to try out newer styles, techniques and visual idioms with the usage of unconventional surface and medium as it catches his fascination. It is ridiculous to straightjacket him in any particular category.
He declares,

“An artist has to have the curiosity of a child…and a mind to play with his medium, and an ability to marvel and wonder at the life around”.

Santhal Dance, acrylic on canvas by Shantanu Ukil, 2005.
Photo: Mukul Dey ArchivesIndeed, an artist must have an ability to marvel! Though not an unknown name in India, Shantanu Ukil had a solitary existence throughout his artistic career. He never belonged to any group really. At times he exhibited, and often not. During mid-1990s, after a gap of about a decade, Shantanu was introduced to the art lovers of Mumbai by his younger son Shivashri who coaxed the artist out of his shell and had his show organized in the business capital of India.
The result was a tremendous success. The whole exhibition was sold out. Not only that his works were acquired by top Mumbai collectors, he got a fabulous press as well!
Beat Aeschlimann playing guitar at Chitralekha, Santiniketan. Watercolour wash-painting on paper by Shantanu Ukil, early 1970s.
Photo: Mukul Dey ArchivesDr. Mulk Raj Anand wrote about the artist in 1999:

“Artist Shantanu Ukil belongs to the family of Ukil Brothers who played important part in the resurgence of Indian painting in the years before freedom.
Although they were rooted in Bengal, they spread out and were able to bring influences from West and elsewhere to bear upon Indian painters. The association of Barada Ukil with Amrita Sher-Gil proved to be significant. The other brothers were commissioned by Government to do frescoes in India House, London.
Shri Shantanu Ukil is the heir to Ukil tradition. He has travelled widely, lived in the west, and, now, brings to painting technique the new acrylic medium, which seems to evoke layers of form by juxtaposition of colours, so that paintings become near sculturesque.
This technique is very suitable for the figures in our country, because the vitality of the human beings, in various moods, comes through almost dramatically. Roughness of form, recreated in the new technique, makes for action-pictures and for dramatic presentation of people, specially folk, in human form”.

The artist passed away in his studio at Santiniketan in May 2006.

Shakti Burman

Shakti Burman

Shakti Burman was born in 1935 in Kolkata. He is a contemporary Indian artist who lives in France. He grew up in East Bengal which is now Bangladesh. Despite living in France for several years he has maintained strong ties with India and regularly exhibits his work. He is a fine lithographer who has the ability to achieve an incredible range of tonal and textural variations. Several books have been illustrated by him such as collection of Mallarme`s poems. Several portfolios of his lithographs have also been published.

His works are steeped in romanticism and fantasy. Europe and India are fused in his thoughts. From unlikely places exotic birds and blooms sprout. Sensuously painted women lie in a mythical landscape. The surface is textured that look like aging frescos.

He uses complementary colours, varied textures thereby holding out a dream world of harmony - a world that is an abode of abiding peace. The viewer feels assured of peace and happiness in the world of Burman`s paintings. The trees, the birds and the animals; the flowers; the open water bodies, the boats, the flutists and drummer boys are depicted in his works. Reality meets and blends with his dream world. Realism is very much a part of his paintings however he returns to his dream world time and again.

He says "My childhood memories are always there, mixed up with the realities of the day. In creative art, the role of memory is a recognised fact. But in my case, that of a painter working in a foreign city a vast distance away from his native milieu, memory is doubly potent in sustaining the creative life,". Over the years he has developed his own style and technique to project the world of his vision. Classical sculpture and painting have influenced his paintings that were visible in his paintings of the 1960s such as "Bodhisatva", "Tree of Knowledge", "Dream" and "Dream of Maya". French tapestry is visible in his paintings. Some of his paintings are illustrative. His paintings are mostly in oils. His own image, the people whom he knows and the historical characters are the themes used in his paintings.

Jayasri Burman

Jayasri Burman

Jayasri Burman is a noted contemporary Indian painter. She was born in 1960. She received her training in fine arts from the Kala Bhavan in Shantiniketan, and later from the Visual College of Art, Kolkata. Eventually she received training under the illustrious Monsieur Ceizerzi in print making in Paris. Jayasri Burman hails from a family of prominent artists. She is married to the celebrated artist Paresh Maity. Her uncle Sakti Burman, residing in France, is an illustrious Indian artist. Expert artist Maya Burman is her cousin.

Jayasri Burman`s work can be regarded as masterpiece, which has `a dream-like and lyrical quality with unique sensitivity`. Her works are primarily inspired from the Indian folk element. Through each of her creation the refreshing quality of forthrightness and honesty is reflected. The originality of her paintings is very delighting. The ornamental and contriving element of the folk style is very minutely woven into the patterns of her canvas. But whatever the case may be, originality and natural charm is always present in her creations. Jayasri Burman`s paintings never face the lack of sophistication. These qualities of her creation are considered exclusively her own.

Women are the main theme of Jayasri Burman`s paintings. They have always been given a significant place in her creations. She is not a feminist, but has always attempted to see the women content in various aspects of life. Her women are `free and at one with Nature, sometimes they are a coronated ceremonial bird, and at others, a mother Goddess or a creature of the woods`. Her works also expresses her intimacy with nature. Through her paintings, the lush green environs, the crossbred imagery of a woman, the moribund pools that divulge the flamed colours of "Basant" (spring) are reinterpreted. The image of woman in her painting is more bird-like in her poise and form.

The body of work of Jayasri Burman brings out an unconscious debarred energy that can be found in the surroundings of Shantiniketan, from where she has obtained her finest skills in painting. `The dance of colour` is her current vehicle of expression. The responsible factor behind this grace is the development of her maturity and her own satisfaction with life. What she had benefitted then has helped her to respond to the wide-ranging facets of Indian culture- this new kind of Nature has enthused the artist to direct her eye upon the paint.

Red, blue or radiant saffron are the colours frequently used by Jayasri Burman. Her works can be seen as `commitment to an art that is derived from the experience of the landscape - it is more than a matter of seeing things afresh - it is the perception that is aware of the transience and mutability of landscape`. Her works depict closeness in every sphere, sometimes it admits the viewers and they started realising themselves to be a part of it. One step into the world of Jayasri Burman`s work, and one becomes stimulant in responding to the nonconformist canons of beauty and partake of the choreography of Nature. She has won several prizes for her art works. In 1987, she received Certificate of Merit, All India Youth Art Exhibition; in 1985 she was awarded the National Award. In 1979 Burman was felicitated by the College of Visual Arts in Tempera for Outstanding Merit in the Annual Exhibition.

She has exhibited her works in India, and overseas as well. In 2005, she organised an exhibition, namely "The Family" where she had exhibited paintings of her artist family members. Some notable exhibitions of Jayasri Burman are-- 2006 `Sacred Feminine`, Art Musings, Mumbai; 2005 Fairytales & Laments- The Mythology of Jayasri Burman, Arts India, Palo Alto; 2002 Gallery Sumukha, Bangalore; 1997-99-2000 Gallerie Ganesha, New Delhi; 1992 Pundole Art Gallery, Mumbai; 1985-90-92-96 Chitrakoot Gallery, Kolkata; 2006 The Indiart Show 2006, Lasalle - Sia, Singapore; 2005 `The Family` Art Musings, Mumbai; 2005, CIMA, Kolkata; 2004 `Shadanga` Gallerie Ganesha, New Delhi; 2004 Visual Art Gallery, London; 2003 Workshop in Egypt with Indian Contemporary Artists by BAYAR ABS; 2001-02 Modi Foundation, London; 2001-02 `Bollywood Show`, Selfridges, London; 2001-02 Group Show of Bengal Art, Centre of International Modern Art (CIMA), Kolkata; 2002 `The Family-3`, with Sakti Burman, Maya Burman, Jayasri Burman, Apparao Gallery, Chennai; 2001 `Indian Contemporary`, Hong Kong; 2001 `Indian Contemporary Fine Art`, Los Angeles, USA; 1999 `Emerging Trends`, Centre of International Modern Art (CIMA), Kolkata; 1997 `Panchadashi`, Gallery La Mere, Kolkata; 1997 `The Best of Bengal from Independence to the Present`, Chitrakoot Art Gallery, Kolkata; 1996 `Urban Signals, Shifting Images-II`, Birla Academy of Art and Culture, Mumbai; 1994 Exhibition of paintings and Sculptures by Eminent Contemporary Artists, Chitrakoot Art Gallery, Kolkata; 1993 `Life-Long`, Emerald Isle, Kolkata; 1992 `The Baijis`, Chitrakoot Art Gallery, Kolkata; 1991 Annual Exhibition of Graphics, Paintings and Sculptures, Gallery BF-14, Kolkata; 1991 `A Tribute to Vincent Van Gogh`, Vadehra Art Gallery, New Delhi; 1990 `Kolkata through the Eyes of Painters`, Birla Academy of Art and Culture, Kolkata; 1989 `Young Faces in Contemporary Indian Art`, Birla Academy of Art and Culture, Kolkata; 1999 `Summer Show by Contemporary Eminent Artists of Bengal`, Chitrakoot Art Gallery, Kolkata; 1984 Three Person Exhibition, Paris; 1987 International Triennale, Intergraphic, Germany; 1986 Bharat Bhavan Biennale, Bhopal; 1983-85 National Exhibition, Lalit Kala Akademi, New Delhi; 1983-85 National Exhibition, Lalit Kala Akademi, Kolkata; 1983-85 All India Fine Arts and Crafts Society (AIFACS), New Delhi.

Jahar Dasgupta

Jahar Dasgupta

 

Jahar Dasgupta was born in Jamshedpur ( TataNagar, Jharkhand, India) in the year 1942. He was admitted to Kalabhavan, Shantiniketan and took his primary lessons under legendary mentors like Ramkinkar Baiz and Benode Bihari Mukherjee. He passed from VisvaBharati in the year 1964. He uses soft but bright colors in his paintings and rebellious in his own world by reconstructing the barriers between traditional and contemporary art. For his subject of work Jahar Dasgupta has chosen women as an integral part of all of his paintings and nature comes just after.

Jahar Dasgupta has done many solo exhibitions as well as group shows and was invited as artist from several parts of India and abroad. He attended workshops in different places of West Bengal, Delhi, Tripura, Hyderabad and Andaman & Nikobar. He was also one of the founder members of Painters` Orchestra.

Jahar Dasgupta`s solo shows were held at Chitrakoot Art Gallery, Lalit Kala Academy, Academy of Fine Arts, Gallery Honsmania (Norway) and Club Bangladesh (Sweden) in the period 1967-2006. In the same period of time he also participated in group-shows namely Nehru Center, London; Maisonde 1` Inde, Sally Indira Gandhi, Paris; Salon Exposition (South Korea); Indian Habitat Center (New Delhi); Academy of Fine Arts (Kolkata); Jahangir Art Gallery (Mumbai) and attended all group shows by Painter`s Orchestra held in Kolkata, Shantiniketan, Delhi and Mumbai.

His collections are in many places in India and abroad like Holland, USA, UK, Spain, Norway,France, Korea and Muscat . Recently Prince of Wales Museum, Mumbai collected his paintings.

Dhiraj Choudhury

Dhiraj Choudhury

 Dhiraj Choudhury was born on 1936 at then Bengal, now Bangladesh. He was a student of Government College, Darjeeling and the Principal Dr. K. D.Ghosh encouraged him to follow up his dreams to become an artist. Later he was admitted to College of Arts and Crafts, Calcutta and Delhi Polytechnic (Delhi College of Art). He has taught from 1962 to 1996 in Women Polytechnic and Department of Painting, Delhi College of Art, University of Delhi. He has ameliorated Calcutta Painters Society by being a member, of Artists Forum, Society of Contemporary Artists, AIFACS, New Delhi. Dhiraj Choudhury has founded `Quartet Artist` and `Line`, a group devoted to drawing.

Dhiraj Choudhury has more than eighty exhibitions, among which sixteen are international, which is sufficient enough to understand his popularity as a painter. UK, USA, France, Germany, Switzerland, Singapore are the countries where his foreign shows were arranged. In 1979 an exhibition in Geneva with Miro and Dali added a feather to his cap. Dhiraj Choudhury has participated in many National and International Exhibitions and received many awards including National Award on 1995.On the same year he had Exhibitions of his major works at Birla Academy of Art & Culture, Calcutta and All India Fine Arts & Crafts Society at New Delhi.

In 1998 the shows were `50 Years Struggle for Freedom`, a retrospective at Rabindra Bhavan and Lalit Kala Akademi of New Delhi. On 1999 there was `At The Threshold of The New Millennium` at Kumar Gallery, New Delhi. In 2000 there was a traveling exhibition in Sweden on Mural on `Love`. In South of France the paintings `Love` were exhibited at the Millennium Festival, as well as St. Albans, UK. He also painted and exhibited at St. Petersburg, Florida, USA. On 2001 there was a Retrospective of his Water Color painted in the period 1955-2000 at Art Consult of New Delhi. He had many One-man shows among which the exhibition in Art World, Chennai and other one in Time & Space Gallery, Bangalore can be named. Dhiraj Choudhury has curated his own exhibition and art workshops on the theme of `Love` at St. Albans, and Margaret Harvey Gallery at Herts, UK. In 2002 the exhibition on `Colors of Love` paintings at Kumar Gallery New Delhi brought a lot of fame to Dhiraj Chowdhury`s work.

Dhiraj Choudhury has curated and organized workshops and exhibitions on social theme `Their Story` at Manipur, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Delhi. On 1982 he became the advisor of `Philosophy of Education for Contemporary Youth` sponsored by ICCR and Department of Culture, Govt. of India. He visited Bangladesh and gave lectures in Dhaka Art College, where there was interaction between Bagladeshi and Indian artists. Beside these Dhiraj Choudhury is involved in many other social works. He is the Art Advisor at the Department of Culture, National Gallery of Modern Art, New Delhi. He was also the Art Advisor of HUDCO, New Delhi and was associated with the Voluntary Health Organization,India. Dhiraj Choudhury initiated `Sketch Club` among his students, organized `Womens` Painters Group`, `Line`, `Quartet Artist` and `Artist Forum`. He is also associated with Gallery 26.

Few of Dhiraj Chowdhury`s publications are `50 Years Struggle for Freedom` published by A. Mukherjee & Co; `South of France Through the Painters Eyes`; `70s 80s 90s Drawings`, `Art Consult:Love at the Threshold of the New Millenium`, Kumar Gallery, New Delhi; Portfolio of `Line, Ton & Texture` ; `Love` ; `Singapore` ; `Child`; `Reproductions of paintings`.

The collection of Dhiraj Choudhury can be found in Victoria & Albert Museum, London; Caparo House, London; Indian High Commission, London; St. Albans Community Center, UK ; National Gallery of Modern Art, New Delhi; Lalit Kala Akademi, New Delhi and also in many private collections in India and abroad.

K G SUBRAMANYAN

K G SUBRAMANYAN
I met Panicker sometime in 1942. It was by a surprising coincidence. I was in those days a student in the Presidency College, Madras, and a kind of student activist. Rather sour with things around I used to divert myself with paintings and scribbling and some of these paintings and scribbles found their way to Panicker’s hands through a common friend. These apparently roused his enthusiasm and he showed them to D.P. Roychoudhury, then principal of the Madras School of Art who, in his turn sent me a dramatic invitation to join the School as his special student. I did not do so for various reasons, and , in any case, that is an old story. The incident comes back to me now
that Panicker is no more. For it shows the man to a certain extent; for him art was a  consuming passion and anyone in the field, irrespective of who he was, was his immediate friend. And he went very much out of the way to befriend him. It is this enthusiasm that made him the central hub of a large corpus of art activity in Madras in the fifties and the sixties and, later, the mentor and motivator of his incredible dream-child, the Cholamandal Artist Village.
When I first met Panicker I was a new-comer to the field of art and he was already a respected teacher in the school, next in status only to Roychoudhury. But that did not stand in our way. There was no reserve in the meeting; he showed his work to me and discussed art with me as if we were old friends. He was at that time quite a virtuoso. His water colours and gouaches, interweaving the lights and shadows of palm groves, had a freshness of touch that could surprise both expert and novice. His drawings had a kind of bottled excitement in them and combined to that a great professional competence. He bounced around the enthusiasm, his eyes sparkled at everything he saw, the people, the landscape, the common facts of the Madras street and his response to these was always earnest and direct.

I did finally end up in an art school two years later (though in Santhiniketan and not in Madras). I sometimes wonder whether meeting Panicker had something to do with it. Anyway, we always met thereafter whenever I was in Madras, though this was not very often. I always enjoyed the meeting and, I suppose, so did he; we went over a variety of topics, on art, on literature and the like. Panicker’s interests were large, which was fair among the artists of his time, and he was remarkably articulate. We discussed his work and mine, though there was no much of mine to discuss at that time; and I had a periodical glimpse of what he was going through at that time.
In the late forties Panicker was trying hard to slough off his virtuosity. With it he probably felt like he was still wearing the school blazers. He was trying to start afresh, keeping in front of him a kind of Van Goghian ideal, a direct expressive response to things around. His work took on a simpler image; his palette brightened up and the linearity of forms became pronounced. Not much later he made a trip to England, visiting Europe on the way. His western excursion affected him like it affected most Indian artists of any individuality; it threw him back to himself. It was as if across the seas a strange longing for his land caught him in the pit of his stomach. On his return he became a -
committed indigenist, though not in the traditionalist sense. And it started him on a new road. what he has done since is now known to a lot of people. At first his painting featured voluptuous human forms in rambling line, which metamorphosed slowly into wriggling foetal specters and later uncoiled into rhythmic lines and squiggles, moving in stages from a writhing human landscape into a microbial street of linear romanticism. They became less rolled out an intriguing carpet of colour fields and calligraphic texture, with a distant visual reference to our old manuscript scrolls.
Panicker’s role in the art world of Madras was a decisive one. He was the first person who contributed much to bring the South Indian artist out of his crisis of self-confidence. His infectious enthusiasm worked like leaven in the youth. He helped them, organized them, fought their cause on national forums to the chagrin of many. But his role in the Indian Art world is even more illustrious; he led a generation of young artists to look into themselves and their surroundings; if it led some to these into certain preciosities it was not his fault. He made them think about art in a larger perspective; the artists’ village he founded in Cholamandal is a lasting proof of this. To persuade young artists to call off their dependence  on commercial galleries and live in a kind of commune, living and working together, sharing their successes and failure, practicing art in a larger spectrum is a remarkable achievement; not only is the concept elevating, in the realities of our art situation it is a pragmatic one too. The survival of this village intact, with the same spirit and perspective, will be a living monument to his vision.

Why do I paint
I myself do not know precisely, why I paint. Apart from a general ill-defined knowledge of the impulses behind my other activities I have had no exact assessment of these. However, from my childhood days, ever since consciousness dawned on me, what has haunted by imagination throughout was a sense of some deficiency, and a sense of inferiority. I had yet another awareness; that if I had been alone; if there were no one to see what I was doing, I would be able to do something beyond the capacity of most. This helped me to land into many scrapes. Though my tales about my imaginary daredevilry were made fun of by other children, the elders listened to these amusedly. And they used to ask me to repeat such tales. However,	....
I used to feel that i had never succeeded appreciably in this diversion. And I used to wonder why. But , I was helpless to remedy it. With the narration of such tales I used to gather some sort of self-confidence. And I had nothing else to do. It was at this time that another youngster joined the school, the Madras Christian College School. Though he had been only eleven years old, he was gifted with the ebullient skill of executing drawings and paintings in simple style. He helped to open my eyes. But, on sensing his invaluable innate gift, I used to feel bewildered. I began to draw the pictures of villages and coconut groves which I had been familiar with , in my village in Kerala. Canals used to make me highly emotional. And my eyes used at such times to fill with tears. Feelings that this was unmanly, I was at pains to hide the tears from others quickly wiping them off. I began to paint continuously from then onwards. Initially, these depicted canals, coconut groves and paddy fields. And this work could be done alone, without the supervision of anyone else. And I could get immersed in such work. And it was much better than spinning out heroic tales. It used to give me similar self confidence and was of equal attractiveness.

At this stage, painting had been a source of joy. I had no serious worry. I began to gain strength steadily to reach a well defined goal. It was at this time that the goal itself was challenged. And I began to feel that the heaven which I had built for my own self was transient and insubstantial. And when I woke from my dream I felt sure of one thing- I had to build a new different world. This shifting of goals occurred at least four times during my career. Though the goal kept changing the emotional response from painting remained constant. Ravi Varma, Lady Pentland, Cotman, Brangwyn, Van Gogh, Gaugin, Mattisse, Fauves etc., came and went, one after the other, in a series of influences. Sometimes I used to be under the influence of many such, simultaneously. But, during the early 1950s I began to feel dissatisfied with the Western influence which had been my mainstay. From then on, between 1953 and ’63, I was under the influence of a combination of Ajantha and Van Gogh. This was the period during which it dawned on me that I would be able to contribute something at sometime or other to the art of our country. But, I had to complete quite a lot of work, before attaining this goal. And the art movement in Western countries was going ahead rapidly. I was aware, early enough, that unless one was able to grasp and assimilate the fundamentals of Western modern art in would not be possible to contribute anything worth while to the art of our country. I used to hear a lot about Paul Klee even then . Egyptian pictures and hieroglyphics influenced him considerably. It was Paul Klee who roused plenty of hopes in me. Paul Klee who roused plenty of hopes in me. Paul Klee is closer to our art than Picasso or Braque. His lines are simple and full of life.
Once again, the little world which I had built, tumbled down round my ears. After learning the lessons imparted by Klee, I was at a loss how to commence work on the basis of these, from scratch. I did not like to copy him. It would be an insult to my Guru. I had to begin from the beginning, like any beginner. The past was found equally to be a help as well as a hindrance in this new venture. I was inspired and at the same time cast down. Suddenly, one day I happened to notice a page from the maths note book of a young student. Arabic figures, Latin and other symbols of Algebra
and Mathematics and the linear and other formations of Geometry, all helped to rouse in me a new idea. I had been familiar with these in the past. But, only as a student of Maths. But now these opened our a vista of creative art. With renewed ardour I plunged into the new phase, in 1963. By the time my lines had begun to assume the essence of words and symbols.

As my interest turned more and more into traditional Indian symbols, astrological charts and astrological tomes I began to discard the Roman letters which I had used in the beginning and began to adopt the Malayalam script which was more acceptable to me.

It was much later that I came across Tantric art. Somehow, these failed to have any impact on my creative impulse. The symbols which I use now are not symbols of any thing particular. Even most of the alphabets are those fashioned by me.

Malayalam script remains only, every partially, as Malayalam letters. Mostly these are indecipherabale signs which resemble letters. I have used these only to provide visual effects to the picture.

K.C.S. Panicker

K.C.S. Panicker

"I have been influenced throughout my artistic career by the great Indian spiritual thinkers. They explored the metaphysical and the spiritual worlds, while I interpreted it on my canvas." --- K.C.S. Paniker. K.C.S. Panicker is regarded one of the best metaphysical and abstract painters. His artwork during the 60s started establishing a new era of Indian art, in terms of the country`s antique metaphysical and spiritual knowledge. At that time, Western paintings were still dominating over the world of fine arts.

K.C.S. Panicker was born on May 30th 1911 in Coimbatore. He used to live in a lush green village, from where he acquired inspiration. The colourful landscapes, which he created during his early years, were the result of that inspiration. Later he moved away from landscapes onto other things, but the effect of bright colours always stayed in his paintings. A child prodigy, K.C.S. Panicker had started painting landscapes at the tender age of 12. When he was 17, he had presented his paintings at the Madras Fine Arts Society`s annual shows. In 1918, after the death of his father in order to support his family, he took up a job in the Indian Telegraph Department. He had to give up his college education for this.

Later, by the age of 25, Panicker joined the Government School of Arts and Crafts in Chennai. In 1954 he got his first international exposure. During his exhibitions abroad, he came in touch with abstract artists like Sarvodar Dali, who had a major influence in his art. As he recalls, "They hark back to the weird, but spiritually uplifting figurative exaggerations of ancient Indian painting and sculpture." Panicker went on to use calligraphy and symbols down the line, in order to project a state of metaphysical abstraction. K.C.S. Panicker expired in January 1977, at the age of 66 in Chennai.

In 1954, the Ministry of Education, Govt. of India, chose K.C.S. Panicker as one of the Nine Eminent Artists and Member of Executive Board of the Lalit Kala Akademi, New Delhi. He had travelled extensively in England, France, Switzerland and Italy and also had conducted one-man exhibition of paintings at the India House, London, Paris and Lille. Between 1955 to 1958, he was appointed the Vice-Principal as well as Principal of the Govt. School of Arts and Crafts, Madras. In 1959, Panicker travelled extensively in USSR and talked on Indian Art in Moscow, Leningrad and Kiev. In 1961, he took part in the Exhibition of paintings at the VI Bineal de Sao Paulo, Brazil. He had also participated in the Indian Art Exhibition in Mexico and had helped in the upgradation of the

Government College of Arts and Crafts. As a member of the Indian Delegation in 1963, KCS Panicker travelled expansively in USA and took part in discussions with American artists as a guest of the State Department of USA. Between the years 1964 and 1967, he had also participated in the Tokyo International Exhibition, the Festival Hall Exhibition, London (1965), and the Venice Biennale, 1967. He was also conferred the national award for painting in 1966. He had founded the Cholamandal Artists` Village in Madras. In 1967 he retired from the post of the principal of the Govt. College of Arts and Crafts, Madras. In 1976 he was elected Fellow of the Lalit Kala Akademi.