Sketching their surroundings: Three artists unite for an art exhibition

After the Rain by Haren Das.

The desire to document their surrounding is what unites this group of artists from Bengal. If Chittaprosad Bhattacharya sketched the victims of the Bengal famine, poor peasants and labourers, Somnath Hore’s prints reflected the political turbulence of the times through anguished human figures. Haren Das captured rural, pastoral Bengal where man lived in perfect harmony with nature.

The trio is being displayed together in the exhibition “Print: Three Masters” that is on at Art Indus gallery. “This is to give the Bengal artists their due. The three of them are excellent printmakers working on subjects of everyday life,” says gallerist Vijay Lakshmi about the display featuring 20 works. Selected from the personal collection of a Kolkata-based collector, the works of each master is symbolic of his oeuvre. So among others, Hore’s 1978 lithograph has a skeletal figure on the ground, and Das has a couple on the river bed with their fishing net. Bhattacharya’s works offer a glimpse of a Bengal that no longer exists — from woodcuts depicting tribal dance to the forest greens and children playing in stagnant water. “This is an appropriate time for the exhibition. With not many good shows in summer, it will get the attention it deserves,” adds Lakshmi.

The exhibition at Art Indus, 37, Santushti Shopping Complex, Chanakyapuri, is on till June 28.

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This story appeared in print with the headline Real Time