Artist View

DIED
August 7, 1941 Jorasanko Thakurbari, Calcutta

EDUCATION QUALIFICATIONS
Self-Taught Artist
1879 he went to England and was admitted to University College. Taught at Visva Bharati, Santiniketan, Kolkata
1878 he went to Ahmedabad to study English
1871 Admitted to Bengal Academy, an Anglo-Indian school. Calcutta
1870 he started learning drawing and music along with other subjects, Jorasanko, Kolkata
In 1868 he studied at the Oriental Seminary and later at the Calcutta Normal School.

SELECTED POSTHUMOUS EXHIBITIONS
2013-14 Transition, 20th anniversary exhibition, Center for International Modern Art (CIMA), Kolkata
2011-12 The Last Harvest, Traveling Exhibition organized by the Ministry of Culture through the National Gallery of Modern Art (NGMA), New Delhi at Asia Society, New York, Asian Art Museum, Berlin, National Museum of Korea, Seoul, The National Gallery of Visual Arts, Kuala Lumpur, NGMCA, Rome, McMichael Canadian Art Collection, Toronto
2011-12 Rabindranath Tagore poet and painter, on the occasion of the 150th anniversary of the birth of Rabindranath Tagore at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London
2011 Ethos V Indian Art through the Lens of History (1900 to 1980), Indigo Blue Art, Singapore
2011 Three Tagores Art Circle, on the eve of the 150th anniversary of Tagore's birth at the National Gallery of Modern Art (NGMA), New Delhi
2011 The Master's Strokes Art of Rabindranath Tagore, on the eve of Tagore's 150th birth anniversary at the National Gallery of Modern Art (NGMA), New Delhi
2011 Manifestations V, Delhi Art Gallery, New Delhi
2011 The Rise of Indian Modern Art, Aicon Gallery, London
2010 Paper Trails, Vadehra Art Gallery, New Delhi
2010 The Art of Rabindranath Tagore's Master Strokes, National Gallery of Modern Art (NGMA), New Delhi
2010 Manifestations IV, Delhi Art Gallery, New Delhi
2009 Indian Art after Independence Selected works from the collections of Virginia and Ravi Akhoury and Shelley and Donald Rubin, Emily Lowe Gallery, Hempstead
2005 Manifestations III, Delhi Art Gallery, New Delhi
2004 Manifestations II, Delhi Art Gallery, New Delhi
1987-88 Festival of India, USSR and Japan
1986-87 Barbican Gallery, London, Corner House, Manchester, The Third Eye, Glasgow, Cartwright Hall, Bedford and Museum of Modern Art, Oxford
1985 Jakarta and Eastern Europe
1982 Six Indian Painters, Tate Gallery, London
1981-85 Traveling exhibition, Tokyo, Jakarta and Eastern Europe
1973 Rabindra Bhavan Gallery, Visva-Bharati University, Calcutta
1967 BAAC, Calcutta
1972 Solo exhibition, Birla Academy of Art and Culture (BAAC), Calcutta
1967 Solo exhibition, Birla Academy of Art and Culture (BAAC), Calcutta
1965 Solo exhibition, National Gallery of Modern Art (NGMA)
1961 Solo Exhibition, Tagore Centenary Exhibition, Calcutta
1961 Solo exhibition, High Commission of India, Karachi
1961 Solo exhibition, Swiss National Library, Switzerland
1961 Solo exhibition, Colombo Art Gallery, Sri Lanka
1959 Rome -New York Art Foundation, Rome
1955.57 Academy of Fine Arts, Calcutta
1953 Solo exhibition, National Library, Calcutta
1953 Solo exhibition, Jehangir Art Gallery, Mumbai
1950 Solo exhibition, Allahabad University, Allahabad, Uttar Pradesh
1947 National Gallery of Australia, Melbourne
1946 International Exhibition of Modern Art, Paris
1943 Solo exhibition, Tagore Society, Prince of Wales Museum, Mumbai
1943, 45, 47, 49, 51, 52, 69 Kala Bhavan, Santiniketan, Calcutta

SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS
1939 Bangiya Sathiya Parishad, Calcutta
1938 Calmann Gallery, London
1934 Congress House, Chennai
1932 Calcutta Government College of Arts (CGAC), Calcutta
1931 Newman Galleries, Philadelphia, USA

HONORS AND AWARD
1976 Declared an Art Treasure according to the Antiquities and Art Treasures Law. 1972 by the Government of India
1921 Founder member, Visva Bharati, Santiniketan
1915 Knighted by King George, but refused
1914 Receives the Nobel Prize for his literary achievements
In 1912 he traveled to England and published his first work in English, Gitanjali
1906 Invited to preside over the first session of Bangiya Sammilani
In 1898 he became editor of Bharati
1882 Saraswat Samaj was founded along with Jyotirindranath
1869 Rabindranath's first attempt at writing verses

ABOUT THE ARTIST

People often ask me about the meaning of my images. I remain silent even when my photographs are there. It is up to them to express and not explain. They have nothing hidden behind their appearance for thoughts to explore and words to describe, and that appearance carries their greatest value.

Born into a rich landowning family in Bengal, Rabindranath Tagore took up art quite late, at the age of 63. Thus he is best known for his literary achievements (for which he received the Nobel Prize in 1914). although he has painted nearly 2,500 pictures during the few years that he was an artist. More than 1,500 of them are preserved at Vishva Bharati University, Santiniketan.

Tagore was attracted to the sketches drawn by his elder brother Jyotirindranath. In 1924, while writing Purabi, he began scribbling on the pages of his manuscript. He also had the habit of crossing out and covering up rejected lines and phrases in his poetry with various types of ink scribbles. At one point he noticed that these, taken individually or together, had a special rhythmic presence, and a little more scribbling transformed some into flowers, others into birds or strange and amazing creatures seemingly with a life and body of their own.

Furthermore, since he was a perfectionist, he couldn't stand anything messy, so the crossed-out lines had to be embellished with various means, and so he began to paint.

Although he lacked formal artistic training, he used this knowledge to his advantage, opening new horizons in the use of line and color. In fact, through his work it is evident that his art was a search for a new form of expression, he tried to express through his painting everything that he could not in his verses. If he sought peace and enlightenment in his songs, he seemed to explore darkness and mystery in his drawings. Tagore once said: The world speaks to me in colors, my soul responds with music. In most of his paintings, you can see the use of dark colors and lighting.

For him, the painting was almost like a volcanic eruption of his newfound freedom, so he used various mediums. Tagore's preferred mediums were ink or watercolor, unlimited crayons, ballpoint pen, and also his fingertips. Form, composition, rhythm, and pulsating vitality were integral to Tagore's pictorial vocabulary.

Tagore, in his article My Pictures, explains his paintings The world of sound is a small bubble in the silence of infinity. The Universe only has its language of gestures, it speaks with the voice of images and dances. Every object in this world proclaims in the mute sign of lines and colors the fact that it is not a mere logical abstraction or a mere thing of use, but is unique in itself and carries the miracle of its existence. In an image, the artist creates the language of undoubted reality and we are satisfied to be able to see. It may not be the representation of a beautiful woman but that of a common donkey or something that has no external credentials of truth in nature but only in its internal artistic meaning.

Love is akin to art, it is inexplicable. Duty may be measured by the degree of its benefit, utility by the benefit and power it can bring, but art by nothing but itself. There are other factors of life, which are visitors who come and go. Art is the guest that comes and stays. Others may be important, but art is inevitable.

In 1930, through a series of exhibitions in Paris, London, Berlin, Moscow, and New York, the world discovered the poet Rabindranath as an important modern painter. Subsequently, his works continued to be exhibited both in India and internationally. It is known that he commented that the Indians were not willing to accept him as a painter, so he exhibited more of his works abroad.

His reputation as an artist continued to grow even after he died in 1941. Tagore's contribution to Indian art remains one of the most important to date.

Notification - We do not usually display Rabindranath Tagore's work, only send it to private art collectors and interested art buyers.

WhatsApp -