Independence Day | 8 key artists who were responding to events in India in the 1940s
As Independence Day approaches, we asked DAG vice-president Kishore Singh to look back at the turbulent 1940s and handpick some artists who were responding to what was happening on the ground in India in that important period before the country won its freedom from British rule.
The 1940s were a decade so remarkable in India that contemporary artists continue to refer back to the years just before Independence in their works. But who were the artists who were practising in India in the 1940s, and what were they seeing and responding to? From the Bengal famine of 1943 which artist Chittaprosad Bhattacharya (1915-78) illustrated for Somnath Hore's news magazine People’s Age, to Nandalal Bose's (1882-1966) illustrations for the Indian Constitution and Jamini Roy's (1887-1972) influential visual vocabulary, we asked DAG vice-president and art critic Kishore Singh to pick seven important artists of the time. Pictured here is The Calcutta Group of painters founded in 1943. (Image credit: Nirode Mazumdar via Wikimedia Commons 4.0)
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Nandalal Bose studied under Abanindranath Tagore. He was wonderful with the Bengal School wash-style painting. Then Rabindranath Tagore picks him to head Kala Bhavan at Shantiniketan, and his art changes into an expressionist thought and begins to reflect the people's voice more, says Kishore Singh. (Image: Untitled [Two Women Under the Trees], Gouache and natural pigments on rice paper pasted on mountboard, 1945 22.0 x 15.0 in. Image Credit: DAG Collection)
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In the 1940s, Nandalal Bose continues to be critical. He continues to paint, but he's very, very important because in the 1940s he's picked by Jawaharlal Nehru to lead the team tasked with illustrating the Constitution. It reflects his position and his dynamism in terms of kind of art he was making creating that he was picked for this role, says Singh. (Images of Preamble to the Indian Constitution, 1949, and postage stamp depicting Nandalal Bose via Wikimedia Commons)
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D.P. Roy Chowdhury (1899-1975) is another artist who comes to mind, says Singh. He trained in Bengal and then came to Chennai to head the Madras School of Art. The art that he made here is slightly more realistic, moving away from the Bengal romanticism, Singh explains. Critically, he re-established the visual arts department in the Madras School, which had been mainly doing work in the arts, carpentry and metal work, etc., for exhibitions in England for product design, Singh adds. (Images courtesy DAG and via Wikimedia Commons)
Featured here: D.P. Roy Chowdhury's 'After Bath', Plaster of paris, 25.0 x 12.5 x 6.5 in Image credit: DAG Collection
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The third artist who was very, very important for me, says Singh, is someone who actually documents the Bengal Famine of 1943-44. Now in hindsight we see that it was a man-made famine. But in India, despite photographers present here following the national leaders of freedom struggle, nobody was talking about the Bengal famine the way Chittaprosad was talking about it, virtually like a photojournalist. Image: Chittaprosad's 'Children of Upendra Rishi Das', Rancha, Bikrampur, Pen and ink on paper, 1944, 15.0 x 11.0 in. Image credit: DAG Collection
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Two artists groups were formed in the 1940s. The first was the Calcutta Painters Group formed in 1943, and it consisted of people like Nirode Mazumdar, Rathin Maitra, Gopal Ghosh, Paritosh Sen, Prodosh Dasgupta, Kamala Das Gupta. For them, once again, it was an idea moving away from the Bengal School, and creating a new voice of modernism. Image: Gopal Ghose, Untitled, Gouache on paper pasted on paper, 1945, 9.7 x 13.2 in. Image Credit: DAG Collection
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Gopal Ghose is 'very, very significant in this regard', says Singh. The others, he adds, continue to start much later. Artists like Paritosh Sen, you tend to look at their work from the '60s and '70s, he adds. Ghose, one of the founding core members of the Calcutta Group in 1943, trained at the Government College of Art and Crafts in Chennai in the 1930s, under DP Roy Chowdhury. He travelled a lot within India, to paint his landscapes using 'expressionist qualities'. Image: Gopal Ghose, Untitled, Gouache on paper, 1946, 9.7 x 13.2 in. Image Credit: DAG Collection
The next group is of course the Bombay Progressive Artists' Group, 1947, says Singh. 'A significant body of work... the founding father was (F.N.) Souza, but the group had S.H. Raza, M. F. Husain, K. H. Ara, H. A. Gade, S.K. Bakre, and later Ram Kumar, Akbar Padamsee and Tyeb Mehta.' Singh explains that in the 1940s, while they were not vociferously political, they were taking a position against the romanticised art of the Bengal School the very rigid 'stultified' art of the Bombay Art Society. The Progressives were, of course, looking for a new visual language for a modern Indian art, and they took inspiration from anywhere they could find it - including in Europe. especially Paris. Singh adds that if he were to pick one of the Progressives for this article, he would pick Souza - the most global of our artist. (Image: F.N. Souza with S.H. Raza and Akbar Padamsee in Paris in 1952; photo via Bhanumati Padamsee via Wikimedia Commons)
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Jamini Roy, who redefined Indian art, was very much around in the 1940s, says Singh. (Image: Jamini Roy, Untitled, Tempera on canvas,18.0 X 31.0 in, Image Credit: DAG Collection)
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George Keyt, a Sri Lankan, was the first modernist from the sub-continent who started painting using cubism and his cubist figures went on to inspire F.N. Souza, among others. (Image: George Keyt, Untitled (Nude), Pastel, gouache and ink on paper, 1942, 16.0 X 11.2 in. Image Credit: DAG Collection)
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N.S. Bendre in the 1940s was creating a kind of Indian figuration that borrowed from the traditions but turned them into something modern, explains Singh. He adds that this influenced many Indian artists, including Gaitonde, Jeram Patel in his early figurations, and J. Sultan Ali in his early figurations. N.S. Bendre went on to establish the faculty of fine arts in Baroda. 'If you look at his early works, Bendre creates a kind of elongated, stylized Indian figure in a modern rendition and that rendition then finds an echo in the work of abstractionists like Jeram Patel or J. Sultan Ali... this was a kind of response to what the colonial art schools were teaching,' Singh says. (Image: N.S. Bendre in Baroda, Gujarat, in 1957; photo by Jyoti Bhatt via X/India Lens)
Chanpreet Khurana Features and weekend editor, Moneycontrol
![Nandalal Bose studied under Abanindranath Tagore. He was wonderful with the Bengal School wash-style painting. Then Rabindranath Tagore picks him to head Kala Bhavan at Shantiniketan, and his art changes into an expressionist thought and begins to reflect the people's voice more, says Kishore Singh. (Image: Untitled [Two Women Under the Trees], Gouache and natural pigments on rice paper pasted on mountboard, 1945 22.0 x 15.0 in. Image Credit: DAG Collection)](https://images.moneycontrol.com/static-mcnews/2024/08/20240814105838_Nandalal-Bose-1882-1966-Untitled-Two-Women-Under-the-Trees-Gouache-and-natural-pigments-on-rice-paper-pasted-on-mountboard-1945-22.0-x-15.0-in.-Image-Credit-DAG-Collection.png "Nandalal Bose studied under Abanindranath Tagore. He was wonderful with the Bengal School wash-style painting. Then Rabindranath Tagore picks him to head Kala Bhavan at Shantiniketan, and his art changes into an expressionist thought and begins to reflect the people's voice more, says Kishore Singh. (Image: Untitled [Two Women Under the Trees], Gouache and natural pigments on rice paper pasted on mountboard, 1945 22.0 x 15.0 in. Image Credit: DAG Collection)")
