Category Personalities

Debi Prasad Roy Choudhury MBE (1899–1975) was an Indian sculptor, painter and the founder chairman of the Lalit Kala Akademi. He was known for his bronze sculptures, including Triumph of Labour and Martyr’s Memorial, and is rated by many as one among the major artists of modern Indian art.

Roy Choudhury was born on 15 June 1899 at Tejhat, in Rangpur in the undivided Bengal of the British India (presently in Bangladesh), and did his academic studies from home. He learnt painting from Abanindranath Tagore, the renowned Bengali painter, and his earlier paintings showed influence of his teacher. Turning to sculpting, he initially trained under Hiromony Choudhury, and later, moved to Italy for further training. It was during this period, his works started to gather western influences. Returning to India, he joined the Bengal School of Art for further studies. In 1928, he moved to Chennai to join the Government College of Fine Arts, first as a student and then worked there as the Head of the Department, vice principal and the principal till his retirement in 1958. 

In 1958, the Government of India awarded him the Padma Bhushan, the third highest Indian civilian honour. He received the Lalit Kala Akademi Fellowship in 1962 and, six years later, Rabindra Bharati University, Kolkata, honoured him with DLitt (honoris causa), in 1968. Choudhury, who was married to Dolly, died on 15 October 1975, aged 76.

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The original Constitution of India, adopted on 26 January 1950, was not a printed document. It was entirely handcrafted by the artists of Shantiniketan under the guidance of Acharya Nandalal Bose, with the calligraphy texts done by Prem Behari Narain Raizada in Delhi. 

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. Along with his disciple Rammanohar, Nandalal Bose took up the historic task of beautifying/decorating the original manuscript of the Constitution of India.

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.

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.

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Anjolie Ela Menon (born 1940) is one of India’s leading contemporary artists. Her paintings are in several major collections. In 2006 her work “Yatra” was acquired by the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco, California. Her preferred medium is oil on masonite, though she has also worked in other media, including glass and water colour. She is a well known muralist. She was awarded the Padma Shree in 2000. She lives and works in New Delhi.

Being a well-known muralist, Anjolie Ela Menon has done over 35 solo shows and many group shows in India and abroad and in 1968, 1972 & 1975 she performed along with I, II, III International Triennale by Lalit Kala Akademi, with Paris Biennale, France in 1980 and in 1980 at New York & Washington D.C.

In the year 2000, Government of India conferred Anjolie Ela Menon with the most prestigious Padma Shri Award. She is on the board of trustees in IGNCA             (Gandhi National Centre for the Arts). In 2002, her work was shown in a major exhibition event at the National Gallery of Modern Art, Mumbai which eventually toured other towns including Bangalore, Chennai and Delhi. Her life and work has been featured in several publications and films made for CNN and Doordarshan Channels.

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Sayed Haider Raza (22 February 1922 – 23 July 2016) was an Indian painter who lived and worked in France since 1950, while maintaining strong ties with India. He was born in Babaria, Central Provinces, British India, which is now present-day Madhya Pradesh.

He was a renowned Indian artist. He was awarded the Padma Shri and Fellowship of the Lalit Kala Academi in 1981, Padma Bhushan in 2007 and Padma Vibhushan in 2013. He was conferred with the Commandeur de la Legion d’honneur (Legion of Honour) on July 14, 2015.

His work evolved from painting expressionistic landscapes to abstract ones. From his fluent water colours of landscapes and townscapes executed in the early 1940s, he moved toward a more expressive language, painting landscapes of the mind.

In 1962, he became a visiting lecturer at the University of California in Berkeley, USA. Raza was initially enamored of the bucolic countryside of rural France. Eglise is part of a series which captures the rolling terrain and quaint village architecture of this region. Showing a tumultuous church engulfed by an inky blue night sky, Raza uses gestural brushstrokes and a heavily impasto-ed application of paint, stylistic devices which hint at his later 1970s abstractions.

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Renowned Gond tribal painter Bhajju Shyam who was honoured with Padma Shri this year, recalls an incident with a laughter, which proved a turning point in his life.

Bhajju Shyam is a Gond artist who was born in the village of Patangarh, Madhya Pradesh. While looking for work in Bhopal, Bhajju was encouraged to take up art by his uncle, Jangarh. His internationally acclaimed book, ‘London Jungle Book,’ is a Gond artist’s reflections on the cultural experience in the city of London. A renowned illustrator, he was awarded the Italian Bologna Ragazzi for his work on ‘The Night Life of Trees,’ along with Durgabai Vyam. He has also been conferred with the Padmashri – the fourth highest civilian honour in India – in 2018, for his contribution to the arts.

For his book The Life of Trees Night (2006) he was awarded the 2008 Bologna Children’s Book Fair. Bhajju Shyam lives in Bhopal, India. He was awarded India’s fourth highest civilian award the Padma Shri in 2018.

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Amrita Sher-Gil was an eminent Hungarian-Indian painter. She has been called “one of the greatest avant-garde women artists of the early 20th century” and a “pioneer” in modern Indian art. 

She painted women going to the market, women at a wedding, women at home. Sometimes she showed women bonding with other women. At times the works seemed to convey a sense of silent resolve. It was a rendering rarely seen in depictions of Indian women at the time, when portrayals tended to cast them as happy and obedient.

Her 1932 painting “Young Girls” received a gold medal in 1933 at the Paris Salon, the renowned art show. It depicts her sister, Indira, wearing European clothing and a look of confidence while sitting with a partially undressed friend, Denise Proutaux, whose face is obscured by her hair — one woman bold and daring and another reserved and hidden. The painting reflects the different aspects of Sher-Gil’s personality — outgoing and sociable, as she was known among those who encountered her at Parisian parties, or tucked away and painting vigorously.

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