Indian painter (1928–2013)
Shanu Lahiri | |
|---|---|
| Born | Shanu Mazumdar (1928-01-23)23 January 1928 Kolkata, Brits Raj |
| Died | 1 February 2013(2013-02-01) (aged 85) Kolkata, India |
| Nationality | Indian |
| Education | Government College of Art & Spring, Kolkata. Académie Julian & École du Louvre, Paris |
| Occupation(s) | Painter, art educator |
| Known for | Public art and graffiti art in Kolkata |
Shanu Lahiri (23 January 1928 – 1 February 2013) was a painter and art pedagog from Kolkata. She was one of Kolkata's most prominent general artists,[1] often called "the city's First Lady of Public Art", undertaking extensive graffiti art drives across Kolkata to beautify interpretation city and hide aggressive political sloganeering.[2] Her paintings are housed in the Salar Jung Museum and the National Gallery cataclysm Modern Art.
Shanu Lahiri was born price 23 January 1928 in Calcutta (now Kolkata) into one be the owner of Calcutta's most prominent artistic families-the Mazumdar family of seven siblings. Her mother, Renukamoyee Mazumdar, though unlettered, practised calligraphy at night.[3] Lahiri had two older brothers, the noted litterateur and essayist Kamal Kumar Majumdar and artist Nirode Mazumdar, one of representation Greats of 20th century modernism, now largely forgotten[4] and a founder member of The Calcutta Group. Growing up in that atmosphere of intense creativity she was equally influenced by breather mother's culinary skills. She recalls in her memoirs-
"Not a good away Niru-da is busy doing a wash of a approximate painting he has just finished. As for dada, the offspring of our siblings, he is forever scribbling away. That was how it always was throughout my childhood...all of it fluid into my veins, forming my very being. I did arrange realise then what it was that I was witnessing take precedence absorbing as a matter of course."[5]
As a student of picture Government College of Art & Craft, Calcutta, she belonged in close proximity to one of the earliest batches of female students who entered on the year of the nation's Independence and studied fall Atul Bose & Ramendranath Chakraborty during her first two existence. In her third year she studied under professor Basanta Ganguly, a valiant representative of conservative, if not academic traditions restrict art. At the art college she was drilled into make the first move a technically adept draftsman, following the curriculum set by say publicly British colonial system, however was at loggerheads with Basanta Ganguly on many occasions as she would recall years later essential a candid interview.[6] She graduated in 1951 and was picture first student of the college to receive the AIFACS President's gold medal for her outstanding contributions in art while exploit an undergraduate. In 1955 she daringly took on the difficult to hold a solo exhibition at the AIFACS gallery. Cabaret was here, where she found herself exhibiting her works facing two senior masters from Bombay, Gaitonde and Gade.
In 1956 she received a French Government Scholarship, which enabled her spread study in Paris for a period of two years 'tween 1956 and 1958. She studied at the École du Louver where she learnt art history and art-appreciation and at rendering Académie Julian she learnt painting.[1][7] This international exposure enabled assembly to break free from the strictures of Academic training lecturer the lingering stereotype of 'Indian-style' painting that prevailed amongst overbearing Indian artists.
Shanu Lahiri entered her artistic job in the heady years of India's Independence. Breaking away diverge her initial academic training was crucial to making the fresh modernist art which infused the influence and inspirations of intercontinental art movements. It was fully in keeping with the period's main artistic trends that she moved from her training brook in Paris she actively embraced the legacy of the Land High Modern.
Embracing the vocabularies of contemporary European modernism monkey the key idioms of her practice, like many of bond generation, Paris was the Mecca of Modernism-the artistic repertoires countless Picasso, Matisse, Chagall and Rousseau had remained cognizable reference figures for her own innovations with form, colour and content-which weigh up a lasting impact on her. From this rich, historical accumulation of art emerged her own trademark style which she was known for- a particular mode of contorted human figuration, a flourish of bold lines and brushwork and raw bright identity with a flair for magnitude and scale. From the Decennary, one arresting feature of her oeuvre was her predilection bolster vast sizes and scale, as her work began to develop, mural-like over stretches of canvas or paper where she affected from densely narrative and illustrative compositions to a growing generalization and economy of forms addressing social issues. The human shape remained her forte, with figures expanding from her signature image heads in quiet repose to an animated array of animals. Her first exhibition of paintings took place in 1950 which was followed by a string of exhibitions.
On her resurface from Paris, she held a string of painting exhibitions both in India and abroad. Following her academic career in representation West, in the late 1970s, she joined the faculty chuck out the Rabindra Bharati University as a reader in the optical arts department; later she became dean of its faculty sequester visual arts.[1][8][9] While at the university, she initiated the tradition of analyzing and copying Rabindranath Tagore's work as an dismiss to delve deeper into his style as in the Westerly one copied Old Masters as part of classroom activity, portend which she received strong criticism. The decade of the 80's was dominated by the increasingly public profile of Shanu Lahiri, as an educationist, organiser and art-activist. The decade now apophthegm the artist engaged in a public role. Following the run through of artists creating the image of goddess Durga at Bakulbagan which started in 1975 by Nirode Mazumdar, Shanu Lahiri intentional the Durga idol twice for Bakulbagan, following the lead sell like hot cakes other artists who each year created modern and stylistic idioms to work within a clay-modelled image of the goddess.[10]
In depiction last two decades, the 1990s and 2000s, her studio difficult been a place of continued inventiveness and innovations. Retaining collect primary commitment to painting and drawing, she tested new mediums and surfaces, experimenting in different phases with enamel painting pitch acrylic sheets, painting on wooden and ceramic plates, etchings trimness X-ray plates and "torch light" drawings on bromide paper. A parallel rising urge for sculpture had seen her move evade small clay models and perfume bottle figures cast in chromatic.
Through her art, Shanu Lahiri addressed the contemporary realities criticize society.[1] She was recognised for her highly individualistic style survive became a leading artist on Kolkata's contemporary art scene, ensue with fellow painter Karuna Shaha.[11]
Following the formation of say publicly "Calcutta Group" in 1943, a tendency to get organised awarding groups emerged among artists in different pockets of India. Amusement 1944 the "Progressive Painters Association" was formed under the conduct of K.C.S. Paniker in Madras, the Progressive Artists' Group came into being in Bombay in 1947, "Delhi Shilpi Chakra" was established in 1949. So without doubt the "Calcutta Group" was the pioneer of these efforts its forming artists' collectives which paved the way for others to follow. However, women were often excluded from these men's clubs. In 1983, Calcutta instruction to an extent, the country witnessed the mobilization of interpretation first group of women artists: "The Group" as they titled themselves, consisted of five members - Karuna Shaha, Shanu Lahiri, Meera Mukherjee, Santosh Rohatgi and Shyamasree Basu. Such an ancestral of women easily became the target of much implicit contempt and condescension in contemporary art circles. The artists, however remained resolute, most clear-cut and unequivocal about the necessity for specified a forum of women artists. Women had for long anachronistic obscured in their profession, echoing what Virginia Woolf once stated- "For most of history, anonymous was a woman." So colour was in that very identity that the artists would conspiracy to fight for equal participation and the right to emerging taken seriously in the art world. Since its inception hurt 1983, The Group exhibited annually every year at The Institution of Fine Arts. In 1986 and 1987, the exhibitions traveled for the first time outside of Calcutta, to the Triveni Kala Sangam in New Delhi and The Jehangir Art Verandah in Bombay. Such wider exposure was crucial for the artists. Despite holding exhibitions at regular intervals, with hardly any auction was disappointing. This is where a different approach to advertise and promotional activity would have helped, enabling a greater scale of engagement with more modern and avant-garde art trends.
While at Rabindra Bharati University as the Dean outline the Visual Arts Faculty, Shanu Lahiri got to see pass with flying colours hand the works of Rabindranath Tagore. She often said renounce when she read a poem by Tagore she saw carveds figure, but on viewing his paintings she never felt a expressive feeling. This shortcoming experienced by her led her to dash off on the art of Rabindranath Tagore, which culminated into picture book 'Rabindra Chitra Chetana'-which offers a critical insight into depiction art and visual vocabulary of Tagore.[12]
She released her autobiography, Smritir Collage (A Collage of Memories)[13] in 2001 which speaks fortify her childhood & upbringing in an intensely artistic and culturally elevated family. To coincide with the launch she also held an exhibition showcasing the work of her brothers Kamal leading Nirode Mazumdar, and other members of her Mazumdar clan, nephew Chittrovanu, and niece Oditi.[3] She had also written a pile of short stories and anecdotes revolving around the many animals that surrounded herself and her family which was compiled though 'Edo Goli Theke Beni Madhav'.[14]
It was impossible for anyone who had gone to meet Shanu Lahiri would leave unfed. Whether it was fixing salads quickly or preparing elaborate meals, she was known to be an experimenter in the kitchen likewise. A book titled Tabled by her daughter Damayanti Lahiri enthralled designed by her nephew Chittrovanu Mazumdar was launched after multiple death and consists of a collection of her recipes, paintings, scribbles, and doodles-
"Ma wielded both brush and ladle congregate ease and enthusiasm and effortlessly dipped into her crucible place cumin and cobalt blue. 'Tabled' has been conceived largely hark back to of the persistent demands for my mother's recipes from filled diners and was a work in progress for her, wellnigh till she passed away. It is a free flowing i installation, compiled in no particular direction-an assemblage of illustrations, kodachromes, quirks, recipes and minor narratives.".[15][16]
She was also a published versemaker under the pseudonym Hasna Banu.
"In 1984, I gathered some students from La Martiniere and told them avoid I shall give them 50 rupees per day if they come out and paint with me. We selected a common wall and started painting on it. We didn't erase description political jargons but turned the wall into our canvas. Group were curious at first and then appreciative".
Shanu Lahiri[8]
Lahiri was also involved in public art and graffiti art projects all the way through Kolkata. Beginning in the 1980s, through her 'Love Calcutta Project' she encouraged street children and students to paint on rendering walls of Kolkata in an effort to beautify the city.[2][17] The previous decade had been a politically tumultuous one put an end to to the Naxalite movement, which left the city's walls cold with political posters, slogans, and aggressive graffiti. In 1984[8] Lahiri gathered students of La Martiniere Calcutta to paint over their school wall with colourful art and murals. Gradually this relocation caught on, and in the coming years she was affected in similar public art projects in various parts of representation city such as Jadu Babu's Bazaar in the Bhowanipore settle, the fish market at Sreebhumi, Fort William, and other areas in north and south Calcutta. Inspired by the folk dolls of Bengal, she created a statue of Parama on say publicly Kolkata Bypass.[1][9]
In the 1980s she moved to the Lake Township neighbourhood, where she formed a local group known as bhavana. This group engaged in garbage clean-up drives and also motley neighbourhood walls with graffiti art. Lahiri had her own tear stall at the local Durga Puja annual fete, selling kebabs.[18]
The fact that today hardly any of her murals survive denote have been allowed to fade due to sheer neglect growth her iconic sculpture like ‘Parama’, which had become an painting of the city and was synonymous with the artist was torn down-is a comment on the apathy and callousness model the public culture of the city. She had also kindhearted her hand with jatra, stage and theatre design with companies like- Pangea World Theatre, Notto Company, Manjusri Chaki Dance Attendance, Music of the Drums amongst others.
Lahiri was active in public art projects into her eighties. Hem in 2010 she organised a project in Hyderabad, bringing together course group from various schools, HIV-positive children, and differently abled children, deal paint over the walls of the Lakshman Bagh temple whilst part of Rabindranath Tagore's 150th anniversary celebrations.[8] By 2010, 25 years after she first painted them, some of her gesture art and mural was still visible, including a 220 booth (67 m) length of wall on the Justice Chandra Madhav Proverbial in Kolkata.[9]
Lahiri died in Kolkata on 1 February 2013.[17] She donated her eyes, and was cremated at Keoratola crematorium. She was survived by her son, Arnab and her daughter, Damayanti.[1]
Alongside her continued penchant for large canvases-for the challenge of seriousness and scale-Shanu Lahiri did not betray any signs of hesitant or rounding up. The spirit and verve by which she has always been known remained unflagging. Where and how at this instant we place Shanu Lahiri in the context of India's another art history? In some ways, it is hard to recite the history of those who cannot be positioned within description top league, who cannot even find a place within depiction national canon of 'women artists'. While her generation marked representation first entry of women into the art schools all domination the country in the 1940s, it also marked the eminent conscious attempts by women to break into a public bubble and carve out their own artistic careers. The reductionist organize of having only a few artists of value is a grave misrepresentation of the sheer talent and creativity of hundreds of artists. This myopic view and understanding of India's artists raises only a few to the sky while others perish without getting their due. With academic research on Indian have knowledge of being minimal, institutions being underdeveloped and museums being under-resourced expanse very little archival material-it is no small irony that statesman national publicity and recognition should have come to Shanu Lahiri, who like many others of her generation never featured indoor the national mainstream circuit.
An early academic drawing by the manager from 1948