Ratnabali Chatterjee writes: ‘The West Bengal government had announced the completion of formalities regarding the opening of a permanent gallery of Jamini Roy’s paintings in Calcutta, within the artist’s residence. The dead artist’s studio along with all available paintings were bought by the Government in 1980. The studio, a part of his house, was looked after by the artist’s son. A committee was formed, consisting of a number of distinguished artists from Calcutta, to formulate a plan of viewing for the new gallery.’ According to the family, the government had rented the studio from them for many years, but the plan for a gallery never materialised. ‘The paintings which the government acquired were moved to the NGMA in Delhi,’ said Arkamitra Roy, the great-granddaughter of the artist. Roy’s granddaughter Sanghamitra Roy recalled that Jamini Roy woke up at 3:30 am all his life. At 4 am, he would go down to the studio, where he would open all the doors and windows.

Jamini Roy experimented with painting styles and in his effort to evolve a distinct pictorial language, he was inspired by the post-Impressionists and Kalighat paintings. His stylistic spirit extended to the way he and his son Amiya imagined the Ballygunge residence. The first floor of the house did not exist initially, and the house architecture became a life-sized sketchpad for the artist, which was modified according to the requirements of the artist’s family. The house has many interesting quirks added by the artist. Can you spot them?

When the house was inhabited by the artist’s family and his grandchildren, they recalled that there was a constant momentum of people who visited the house from all around the world. Roads leading up to the house were often barricaded by the police, as remembered by Roy’s granddaughter Sanghamitra Roy— ‘The police always thought we were lying to enter a celebrity’s house, they would refuse to believe that we actually lived here!’…’Where do you think you are going? was a question that the police asked us children frequently, when we used to come home from school.’

Ella Datta writes in the same book ‘There is another anecdote from his boyhood about his attempts to create images. He would draw on the floor of an outer room where visitors were received. He would draw horses, cats and dogs and fill in the sketched outline with small coloured pebbles. The act of creating such images engrossed him. Very early in life he drew attention to his drawing skills.’

The universal act of children colouring the walls of their rooms has remained, as they move from childhood scribbles to numbers and letters from the alphabet on the walls of their ancestral home. Strange unfinished animals peer at people as they walk through the corridors. One of the grandchildren seems to have attempted to create a stained-glass wall in one of the pink-walled rooms, which used to be Jamini Roy’s bedroom.

For Arkamitra Roy, ‘Shifting out of the house was the same as it is for everybody. Leaving behind a place where you have spent the majority of your life is a bittersweet experience–you are sad to leave the memories behind, there's a finality that this is the last time you will see the house, touch the walls, sit on the terrace...and yet, there's the excitement for how the house will look after the museum is completed. But unlike other people who sell their ancestral homes, we will keep coming back here to visit the museum, to see the art, have a cup of tea in the cafeteria... it's a feeling that can't be described adequately in words.’

FURTHER READING:

Ratnabali Chatterjee, ‘The Original Jamini Roy’: A Study in the Consumerism of Art, Social Scientist, Vol. 15, No. 1 (January 1987).

Ella Dutta, Jamini Roy (1887 - 1972): Journey to the Roots, 2015.