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Annada Prasad Bagchi
1849-1905
Annada Prasad Bagchi was a portrait painter and a master of oil paintings of the late 19th and early 20th century Bengal. Born in village Shikharbali under the district of 24-Parganas, Annada Prasad Bagchi received his early education at the Assembly's Institution at Calcutta. He got his early training in art at a copperplate-engraving workshop at Jorasanko where he received instructions from Nilmoni Mukherjee. Bagchi, enrolled at the Government Art School in 1865, received training from H.H.Locke in woodcarving, engraving, lithography, and oil painting. Financial pressures compelled Bagchi to work at a copper-engraving workshop. |
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Nandalal Bose
1883 – 1966
Nandalal Bose was a celebrated painter of modern India. His are admired in many countries and considered among best modern paintings. The beauty of nature in Kharagpur, his birth-place, made a profound impression on the young Nandalal and he was attracted to art. Influenced by the family and the murals of Ajanta, his classic works include scenes from mythologies, women, and village life. He became the Principal of the Kala Bhavan (Art Department) at in 1922. He became the second artist to be elected the , India's National Academy of Art. Several universities conferred honorary Doctorates on him. Visvabharati University honored him by conferring on him the title of 'Deshikottama'. He received the award of 'Padma Bibhushan' in 1954. The Tagore Birth Centenary Medal was awarded to Nandalal Bose in 1965 by the Asiatic Society of Bengal. His was an attractive personality combining modesty and gentle humor. |
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Jamini Roy
1887 - 1972
Jamini Roy is one of the most celebrated artists of modern India. He evolved his idiom of expression out of Bengal's folk painting, discarding both the Western academicism and Neo-Bengal school. His concept of art's agelessness has gained importance in the context of the modern artists' new search for the roots. Born in a remote village of Bankura, he showed interest in representational arts and loved to spend times among the village potters. His actual training began at the age of sixteen in Calcutta at the Government School of Art and Craft. He preferred to take lessons in Western style and technique. After eight years, when he came out of the school, he was an accomplished painter in oils. In his twenties, he earned his living by executing portraits in academic style. But his spirit of quest led him to many directions, including those of idyllic paintings of the genre of Abanindranath's disciples and the landscapes experimenting in the way of the post-Impressionists like Cezanne and Van Gogh. |
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Asit Kumar Haldar
1890-1964
Asit Kumar Haldar, a pioneer of the Renaissance School of Indian Painting and a distinguished disciple of Abanindranath Tagore, was born in Calcutta in 1890. Haldar's ceaseless creative imagery was like a seer's vision that enriches the soul. Rabindranath himself found inspiration from his sensitive brush drawings. Several of his outstanding works bear a striking resemblance to the Ajanta frescoes, though done well before his first visit to Ajanta. He painted in oil, tempera, water colour according to his mood and the subject. He discovered a special technique of painting on wood. Haldar's masterpieces include Raj-Raja, Lotus, Vina, Kunala and Ashoka, Dan-Lila, Ras-Lila, The Flame of Music, Pronam, The Precious Gift, The Captive Prince, The Negro Princesses. Haldar was also the first Indian artist to be elected as Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, London (1934). His name had spread far and wide and his work, The Dance of Destruction, was published by the Czechoslovak Government in their War Souvenir. |
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Hemendranath Majumdar
1894 - 1948
Hemen Majumdar was one of the early Bengal school artists who painted in the Romanticists tradition. Born in Kishoreganj, Bangladesh, he joined the Govt. School of Art in Calcutta in 1910. Later he studied at the Jubilee Art School, Calcutta (1911-15). In 1911, he decorated the gates to welcome King George V on his visit to India. Majumdar founded the Indian Academy of Fine Art in Calcutta in 1919, along with Jogesh Chandra Seal, Jamini Roy, Bhabani Charan Law and Atul Bose. He received the First Prize at an Art Exhibition in Bombay in 1921. In 1931, the Maharaja of Kashmir invited him to live and paint in Kashmir. He was selected as the Court Artist of Maharaja of Patiala in 1932-38. He published the journal, Shilpi, which was co-published by A.C. Mukhopadhyay. Indian Academy of Fine Art published an album, Indian Masters, where some of his paintings were printed. His works, imbibing the realistic technique of light and shade, were best compared to the romanticist painters of Europe. |
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Atul Bose
1898 – 1977
Born in Mymensingh, Atul Bose specialised in portraiture, landscapes and idyllic scenes in the realistic tradition and attained immense popularity. Bose studied at the Jubilee Art Academy in Calcutta, a private institution that sought to train its pupils in the contemporary British art style, opposed to the art movement begun by Abanindranath and Havell. Further he continued under J.P. Ganguly in the Government Art School, Calcutta (until 1918) and the Royal Academy, Rome. He received a scholarship from the University of Calcutta to study art in London. He toured Europe extensively, which had far-reaching consequences on his career as an artist. Founder member of the Indian Academy of Arts and the Society of Fine Arts, Calcutta, Bose has also been the Principal of the Government Art School, Calcutta for three years (from 1945). Afterwards he became the Director of the Indian College of Art and Draftsmanship. The Rabindra Bharati University honoured him with a D.Litt. in 1970. |
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Bhabesh Chandra Sanyal
1902 – 2003
Born at Dibrugarh, Assam, B.C. Sanyal was the senior-most contemporary artist of India who had been involved in the evolution of the Indian art scene since the Colonial period. His passionate involvement and spirit of search in the field of visual art were phenomenal. After studying under Percy Brown and J.P. Ganguly at the Government College of Arts, Calcuttta, he went to various places in India, seeking a place to settle down. During his early years in Calcutta, Sanyal could not subscribe to the ideology of the Bengal School, nor did he take up the Victorian academism as the ultimate artistic expression. His proficiency in sculpture won the young artist a commission to make the statue of Lajpat Rai for the Congress Session in Lahore in 1929. There he settled down and started teaching at the Mayo School of Arts (1929-36). Lovingly known as Baba Sanyal, his humane persona attracted many. As an energetic and innovative teacher, he inspired many aspiring students. |
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Shashi Kumar Hesh
b. 1869
Shashi Kumar Hesh was born in the district of Moimonsinha. He was one of the first Indian artists to go to Italy to receive higher education in art. Hesh was acclaimed as an outstanding painter in England and Germany. He was an eminent portrait painter. Later, he went to Baroda and did a portrait of Sri Aurobinda in oil. |
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Gobardhan Ash
1907 – 1996
A seminal artist of pre-independent India, Gobardhan Ash was born in Begampur, a remote village of Hooghly, to a family solely dependent on agriculture. He came to Calcutta with ardent desire for art training. He was a student of the Government College of Arts and Craft, Calcutta, and was deeply influenced by Debiprasad Roy Chowdhuri and Atul Basu. He also studied at Govt. College of Art & Craft, Madras. He served as a professor at Government College of Arts and Craft, Calcutta for two years (1953-55). As a very sensitive artist, he was not much recognized particularly in the decades of 50s and 60s. Restless by nature, he rejected the nostalgic sentimentalism of Abanindranath and accepted the vitality of the modernist expressionist style. Ash became a member of the rebel groups to establish his individuality. His works on Bengal Famine are considered historical today. The raw emotions in his works are disturbing, yet they evoke the sordid human conditions of poverty or famine. |
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Indu Bhushan Rakshit
b. 1910
Indu Bhushan Rakshit joined the Indian School of Art in 1924. After two years, he joined the prestigious Govt. School of Art during the tenure of Percy Brown. He received his diploma in 1933 under the supervision of Jamini Prakash Gangopadhyay and Mukul Dey. His works involved the Indian style of paintings along with wood cut, linocut, lithography and sculpture. Later, he joined the Society of Oriental Art and the Geological Survey of India as an employee. He then joined as a lecturer of Indian painting in the Govt. College of Art and Craft in 1952 while Ramendranath Chakravorty was the Principal. He officiated in the institution for the next fifteen years. Some of his famous works include Husking, Calcutta in the Thirties, Fisherman at Sea Beach etc. |
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Prodosh Dasgupta
1912 - 1991
Born in Dacca, Bangladesh, Prodosh Dasgupta did his Graduation from the University of Calcutta. He Received his first training in sculpture under the distinguished teacher Hiranmay Roychowdhury, Govt. School of Art/Lucknow. Later he studied under D.P. Roychowdhury, Govt. College of Art/Madras. In 1937-39, he studied sculpture in Royal Academy of Arts/ London. He further studied in Paris. He set up a studio in Calcutta in 1940-50 and worked as a free-lance artist. He was a founder member of the Calcutta Group, and a Fellow of the Lalit Kala Akademi/New Delhi and Royal Society of Arts/London. He was invited by the US Govt. under Leader’s Grant and attended a conference on art education as an Indian delegate in London (1965). He brought the self-conscious individuality of a modern artist into this old medium. His art is, as it should be, of the contemporary mind in India today. His love of the body of man, woman or trees links his work with the great tradition of Indian sculpture. |
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Gopal Ghosh
1913 - 1980
Trained in the style of art known as the neo-Bengal School, Gopal Ghose became a legend in his lifetime for his ingenious handling of the quick and unpredictable medium of watercolor. To him goes the credit of raising its status in Indian art history, from a dabbler's medium to an artist's medium. |
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Zainul Abedin
1914 – 1976
An artist of international repute from Bangladesh, Zainul Abedin was born in . He played a pioneering role in the modern art movement in Bangladesh that began with the setting up of the Institute of Fine Arts in Dhaka, of which he was the founding principal. Like many of his contemporaries, he was born in , and lived through the creation of and . In , Abedin was admitted to Government Art School, Calcutta. He joined the faculty of the school after his education there was completed. Much of his childhood was spent near the river , which later became a source of inspiration throughout his career. Abedin's paintings on the famine of 1940s are probably his most characteristic work. He was an influential member of the of progressive artists. Abedin was involved in all stages of the movements that finally made the creation of possible. (1969) was a famous scroll painting by Abedin. |
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Somnath Hore
1921 – 2006
Somnath Hore is one of the pioneers of the 20th century modern art movement in India. He started sculpting fairly late in life. He is respected not only as an important artist but also as a political activist, who has, over the years, boldly used his talents as a graphic artist and sculptor to express his own personal angst against a socio-political system which breeds acts of violence. The most poignant and powerful statement made by Hore as an artist is his pulp print series, called Wounds. It was the cataclysmic decade of the 1940s, especially the Bengal Famine of 1943, which shaped and moulded his consciousness as an artist. Somnath has often expressed his concern over man’s inhumanity against man and blatant violation of human values, whether it be casteism, communalism, the frightful fallout from nuclear blasts or society’s inability to preserve human dignity. He was fifty-three when he began modelling with wax. They were cast in a way that was not conventional and demanded a great deal of energy and effort. |
A Few of Our Distinguished Alumnies |
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Bijan Chowdhury
b.1931 |
Amal Ghosh
b.1933 |
Arun Bose
b.1934 |
Bipin Goswami
b.1934 |
Shyamal Dutta Roy
b.1934 |
Ganesh Pyne
b.1937 |
Amitabha Banerjee
b.1928 |
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