Born on 15 February 1939 in Faridpur (now in Bangladesh), Jogen Chowdhury’s family moved to Calcutta following the Partition. He studied art at the Government College of Art and Crafts, Calcutta, and subsequently at École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts, Paris. Learn More
Known for establishing the multi-arts complex, Bharat Bhavan, in Bhopal, and for foregrounding tribal art on the Indian art horizon, Jagdish Swaminathan took up the arts professionally later in life, despite an early aptitude towards drawing and painting. Learn More
Born in a Bombay-based business family, J. Sultan Ali’s first act of rebellion was to leave the safety of the family trade and join sculptor-teacher D. P. Roy Chowdhury at the Government College of Art in Madras in 1945. He also studied textile design at the Madras Government Textile Institute, and pursued a photography course in London. Learn More
An ‘India wanderer’, as he liked to call himself, Gopal Ghose spent his formative years away from Calcutta, where he was born on 5 December 1913. His art training began at the Maharaja School of Arts, Jaipur. From 1935-38, Ghose studied at the Government College of Art and Craft, Madras. Once, while painting on the Marina beach in Madras, he caught the attention of C. Rajagopalachari—statesman, activist, writer and leader of the Indian National Congress—who offered to arrange his further studies abroad, which the college authorities, however, did not permit. Learn More
Born in 1937 in Calcutta, Ganesh Pyne lost his father before his teens and personally witnessed the horrors of Partition. The social violence and despair of the 1940s and the tumultuous political events of the 1970s had a deep impact on his psyche and work. Coupled with the influence of his grandmother’s stories, Pyne developed an individual style of poetic surrealism woven around mythology and Bengali folklore. Learn More
Devi Prasad Roy Chowdhury was born in Tajhat (in present day Bangladesh) in 15 June 15 1899. He learnt painting from Abanindranath Tagore, life drawing and portraiture from E. Boyess, and sculpting from Hiranmoy Roychoudhuri, with later training in Italy. Equally at ease with plaster and paint, he evolved his skills in bronze casting, and executed paintings that were an amalgam of the Chinese technique, the Japanese wash process, and his own scratching method, though his early paintings bore Tagore’s influence. Learn More
Born on 7 February 1904, in Behala, Bengal, Benode Behari Mukherjee joined Santiniketan in 1917, and Kala Bhavana in 1919, where he was one of the first students of Nandalal Bose. A congenitally impaired vision that denied him normal schooling and resulted in a lonely childhood, brought him close to nature and had a deep impact on his art. Learn More
Recognised for her contributions to the growth of printmaking in India, Anupam Sud is considered one of the most significant artists of India. Her works depict strong anatomical beings that can be traced back to her father’s love for bodybuilding. She attributes her influences to theatre, classical music, and detective stories, and artistic growth to renowned artist Somnath Hore, with whom she formed a close association. Learn More
Belonging to the first generation of postcolonial Indian artists that sought cosmopolitan freedom in Paris and London during the 1950s and ’60s, Akbar Padamsee developed his images within the genres of portraiture and landscape as refracted through the prism of high modernism. Learn More