Woman Reading a Newspaper

As a painter, illustrator, and writer, Paritosh Sen was a part of the world of Indian art for over five decades. He grew up in Calcutta (now Kolkata) in the 1930s and ‘40s, belonging to a generation of artists who witnessed the suffering the city was put through during the Independence struggle and the Bengal famine of 1943. Sen’s more recognisable works are his caricatures which reflect strong, underlying socio-political issues, and his female nudes. He visited Europe and China during the 1960s, following which there was a shift in his visual language. Sen mostly painted women, filling up the frame with their voluptuous figures as they set about some banal task—praying, smoking, gossiping or reading. He completes the look of the bhadralok lady (or, bhodromohila) here with her carefully draped sari, her red bindi and the sindoor in the parting of her hair. She is clearly a lady of leisure with time to read and contemplate even as she takes a break from her household demands and chores.