France

Chintamoni Kar earned renown as a sculptor but he had begun his career as a painter. It was on his first trip to France in 1938-39 to study sculpture that he got exposed to modern European trends in art, when he also executed this elegant oil, capturing the verdant beauty of the French countryside. Though he had trained in painting at the Indian Society of Oriental Art in Calcutta, this work reveals his mastery in executing impressionist brushstrokes too, making it a truly representative global work of its time.