Untitled

Partha Pratim Deb is a modernist trained in Santiniketan yet his work bears no affinity to not only Santiniketan, but to no other artists’ work as well. In fact, his art is independent of any dominant strand of the period, borne out by this busy work. This Untitled watercolour is a lush portrayal of a vegetable market showing multiple rows of fruit-vegetable stalls and their vendors in a familiar image of the haat or local market. The spatial intricacy and richness of the details is mindboggling and shows Deb’s excellent command over the concept of dividing the picture plane to tell a composite story.