Nandalal Bose
| Nandalal Bose নন্দলাল বসু |
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| Born | 3 December 1882 Bihar, India |
| Died | 16 April 1966 (aged 83) Kolkata, West Bengal, India |
| Nationality | Indian |
| Field | Painting |
| Movement | Modern Indian art |
Nandalal Bose (Bengali: নন্দলাল বসু, Nondo-lal Boshū) (3 December 1882 – 16 April 1966) was an Indian painter of the Bengal school of art. A pupil of Abanindranath Tagore, Bose was known for his "Indian style" of painting. He became the principal of Kala Bhavan, Shanti Niketan in 1922. He was influenced by the Tagore family and the murals of Ajanta; his classic works include paintings of scenes from Indian mythologies, women, and village life.[citation needed]
Today, many critics consider his paintings among India's most important modern paintings.[1][2][3] In 1976, the Archaeological Survey of India, Department of Culture, Govt. of India declared his works among the "nine artists" whose work, "not being antiquities", were to be henceforth considered "to be art treasures, having regard to their artistic and aesthetic value".[4]
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Early life[edit]
Nandalal was born on 3 December 1882 in a middle-class Bengali family of Kharagpur, a small town in the Monghyr district of Bihar state. His father, Purnachandra Bose, was at that time working in the Darbhanga Estate. His mother Kshetramonidevi was a housewife with a skill in improvising toys and dolls for young Nandalal. From his early days Nandalal began taking an interest in modelling images and later, decorating Puja pandals.
In 1897, Nandalal moved to Calcutta for his high school studies in the Central Collegiate School. After clearing his examinations in 1902, he continued his college studies at the same institution. In June 1903 he married Sudhiradevi, the daughter of a family friend. Nanadalal wanted to study art, but he was not given permission by his family. Unable to qualify for promotion in his classes, Nandalal moved to other colleges, joining the Presidency College in 1905 to study commerce. After repeated failures, he persuaded his family to let him study art at Calcutta's School of Art.[5]
Career[edit]
As a young artist, Nandalal Bose was deeply influenced by the murals of the Ajanta Caves. He had become part of an international circle of artists and writers seeking to revive classical Indian culture; a circle that already included Okakura Kakuzō, WillIam Rothenstein, Yokoyama Taikan, Christiana Herringham, Laurence Binyon, Abanindranath Tagore, and the seminal London Modernist sculptors Eric Gill and Jacob Epstein.[6][7]
To mark the 1930 occasion of Mahatma Gandhi's arrest for protesting the British tax on salt, Bose created a black on white linocut print of Gandhi walking with a staff. It became the iconic image for the non-violence movement.
His genius and original style were recognized by famous artists and art critics like Gaganendranath Tagore, Ananda Coomaraswamy and O. C. Ganguli. These lovers of art felt that objective criticism was necessary for the development of painting and founded the Indian Society of Oriental Art.
He became principal of the Kala Bhavana (College of Arts) at Tagore's International University Santiniketan in 1922.
He was also famously asked by Jawaharlal Nehru to sketch the emblems for the Government of India’s awards, including the Bharat Ratna and the Padma Shri.[8] Along with his students, Nandalal Bose took up the historic task of beautifying/decorating the original manuscript of the Constitution of India.[9]
He died on 16 April 1966 in Calcutta.
Today, the National Gallery of Modern Art in Delhi holds 7000 of his works in its collection, including a 1930 black and white linocut of the Dandi March depicting Mahatma Gandhi, and a set of seven posters he later made at the request of Mahatma Gandhi for the 1938 Haripura Session of the Indian National Congress.[10]
Students[edit]
Some of his students were Benode Behari Mukherjee, Ramkinkar Baij, Beohar Rammanohar Sinha, Pratima Thakur, Sovon Som, Jahar Dasgupta, Sabita Thakur, and Kondapalli SeshagiriRao.
Honours and awards[edit]
In 1908, Nandalal Bose was awarded a prize of Rs. 500 at the first art exhibition organized by it[clarification needed] for his painting Shiva-Sati. In 1956, he became the second artist to be elected Fellow of the Lalit Kala Akademi, India's National Academy of Art.
In 1954, Nandalal Bose was awarded the Padma Vibhushan.
Several universities conferred honorary doctorates on him. Vishvabharati University honored him by conferring on him the title of 'Deshikottama'. The Academy of Fine Arts in Calcutta honored Nandalal with the Silver Jubilee Medal. The Tagore Birth Centenary Medal was awarded to Nandalal Bose in 1965 by the Asiatic Society of Bengal.
See also[edit]
Media related to Nandalal Bose at Wikimedia Commons
References[edit]
- ^ "San Diego museum showcases Nandalal Bose". Rediff.com News. June 25, 2008.
- ^ Robert L. Pincus (March 15, 2008). "The Art of Nandalal Bose' is first U.S. showcase for an Indian icon". Paramus Post.
- ^ Ganesh, Kamala; Usha Thakkar (2005). Culture and the making of identity in contemporary India: The Asiatic Society Of Mumbai Bicentenary. SAGE. pp. 88, 92–93. ISBN 0-7619-3381-6.
- ^ Nine Masters Government Museum and Art Gallery, Chandigarh. "Nine Masters: Rabindranath Tagore, Amrita Sher-Gil, Jamini Roy and Nandalal Bose, Ravi Varma, Gaganendranath Tagore, Abanindranath Tagore, Sailoz Mookherjea and Nicholas Roerich."
- ^ Dinkar k Kowshik (1985). Nandalal Bose, the doyen of Indian art. National Book Trust, India. Retrieved 18 April 2012.
- ^ Rupert Richard Arrowsmith, "The Transcultural Roots of Modernism: Imagist Poetry, Japanese Visual Culture, and the Western Museum System", Modernism/modernity Volume 18, Number 1, January 2011, 27-42. ISSN: 1071-6068.
- ^ Video of a Lecture mentioning Bose in the context of Indian influences n global modernism, London University School of Advanced Study, March 2012.
- ^ "Nandalal Bose paintings on display in U.S.". The Hindu. Mar 15, 2008.
- ^ "The Constitution of India". World Digital Library. 2009-05-07. Retrieved 2010-12-09.
- ^ "Bengal School of Art exhibition to open in US". The Economic Times. Jun 24, 2008.
Further reading[edit]
- Nandalal Bose and Indian painting, by Ramyansu Sekhar Das. Tower Publishers, 1958.
- Nandalal Bose: a collection of essays : centenary volume. Lalit Kala Akademi, 1983.
- Nandalal Bose, the doyen of Indian art. (National biography), by Dinkar Kowshik. National Book Trust, India, 1985.
External links[edit]
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