Nandalal Bose
BORN DIED EDUCATION QUALIFICATIONS SELECTED POSTHUMOUS EXHIBITIONS SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS HONORS AND AWARD ABOUT THE ARTIST Born in Bihar in 1882, Nandalal Bose was one of India's most prominent artists of the 20th century and was closely associated with the Bengal School. Bose was one of the few who sought to revitalize Indian art by rooting it in Indian tradition, eschewing the generalized Western academic approach to art that prevailed at the time. He trained under Abanindranath Tagore at the Calcutta School of Art in 1905 and forged a lasting friendship with him. Later, Abanindranath invited him to work at Jorasanko, where he came in contact with A K Coomaraswamy, Rabindranath Tagore, and Count Okakura. An impeccable draftsman, Bose explored mediums such as linocut, woodcut, drypoint, etching, and lithography beyond his commercial possibilities. His close affiliation with the Bengal School led him to explore artistic techniques from the Far East and harness them to resonate with the Indian spirit. In 1920, he joined Kala Bhavan in Shantiniketan as a teacher and taught many notable Indian modernists, including K G Subramanyan. In addition to absorbing indigenous European traditions into his artistic expression, Nandalal also worked on the wash technique used by Japanese artists. These gave rise to a series of water-based paintings that transformed simple objects of everyday life into tools of powerful artistic expression. Among the best-known works of the master are the Haripura panel paintings. Bose painted a series of 77 panels executed on handmade paper in 1938 at the request of Mahatma Gandhi to commemorate the Congress session in Gujarat. These dynamic portraits of daily Indian life cover all aspects of rural existence. Themes such as the humble shoemaker, the tailor, the farmer, or the woman milking a cow, were treated with superb artistic discipline and with the greatest economy of strokes. It was a combination of classical formal technique with vibrant rural themes and themes drawn from rural India that gave his art its great composure and fundamental directness. Nandalal Bose died on April 16, 1966. Notification - We do not usually display Nandalal Bose's work, only send it to private art collectors and interested art buyers.
December 3, 1882 Kharagpur
April 16, 1966 Santiniketan
1922-51 First Principal of Kala Bhavan, Viswa Bharati University, Santiniketan
1919 Taught at Santiniketan Art School
1905-10 Student of Abanindranath Tagore, Government College of Arts and Crafts, Calcutta
1903-05 Commercial Class, Presidency College, Calcutta
1921 Principal of Kala Bhavana, Santiniketan
1954 Member of the Lalit Kala Academy
2012-13 Nandalal Bose and Benode Behari Mukherjee at Lalit Kala Akademi, New Delhi
2011-12 The Body Unleashed, Rubin Museum of Art, New York
2011 Ethos V Indian Art through the Lens of History (1900 to 1980), Indigo Blue Art, Singapore
2011 Postcards by Nandalal Bose, Akar Prakar, Kolkata
2011 Manifestations VI, Delhi Art Gallery, New Delhi
2011 Manifestations V, Delhi Art Gallery, 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
2009 In Search of the Vernacular, Aicon Gallery, New York
2008 Rhythms of India The Art of Nandalal Bose (1882-1966), Organized by the San Diego Museum of Art in collaboration with the National Gallery of Modern Art (NGMA), New Delhi at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, USA. USA
2008 Freedom sixty years after India's independence, Center for International Modern Art (CIMA), Calcutta
2005 Manifestations-III 100 Contemporary Art Artists, organized by Delhi Art Gallery at Nehru Centre, Mumbai, Lalit Kala Akademi, Rabindra Bhavan, New Delhi and Delhi Art Gallery, New Delhi
2004 Manifestations-II 100 Contemporary Art Artists, organized by Delhi Art Gallery at Jehangir Art Gallery, Mumbai and Delhi Art Gallery, New Delhi.
2003 Manifestations-I Indian Art in the 20th Century, organized by the Delhi Art Gallery at the World Trade Centre, Mumbai, and the Delhi Art Gallery, New Delhi.
1997 Santiniketan The Making of Contextual Modernism, National Gallery of Modern Art (NGMA), New Delhi
1995 Reflections of Man and Nature by Six Artists, National Gallery of Modern Art (NGMA), New Delhi
1995 Raku Gallery, Kyoto, Japan
1995 Le Monde De I Art, Paris
1995 Fantasy, Center for International Modern Art (CIMA), Calcutta
1994 Contemporary Miniatures, Center for International Modern Art (CIMA), Calcutta
1993 Small Gallery, Calcutta
1993 Trends and Images, Center for International Modern Art (CIMA), Calcutta
1993 Wounds, National Gallery of Modern Art (NGMA), New Delhi and Center for International Modern Art (CIMA), Calcutta
1992 Nandan Art Gallery, Kala Bhavan, Santiniketan
1991 National Exhibition of Contemporary Art, National Gallery of Modern Art (NGMA), New Delhi
1990 Kala Yatra, Santiniketan
1988 Art Olympiad, Seoul, South Korea
1988 Takaoka Municipal Museum of Art and Meguro Art Museum, Tokyo, Japan
1987 Festival of India, USSR and Switzerland
1982 Centenary Retrospective Exhibition, National Gallery of Modern Art (NGMA), New Delhi
1954 Retrospective, Calcutta Exhibition, Geneva
1937 Lucknow and Haripura Session of the Indian National Congress
1954 Exhibition in Geneva, Switzerland
1928 Athenee Gallery, Geneva, Switzerland
1924 Traveling exhibition in the United States, organized by the American Federation of Art and the Indian Society of Oriental Art (ISOA)
1916 Indian Society of Oriental Art, Calcutta
1915 Indian Society of Oriental Art, Calcutta, Indian Young Men's Association, Chennai
1914 22nd Exhibition of the Societe des Peintres Orientalistes Francais, Grand Palais, Paris. (Travel to Belgium, Holland, and the Imperial Institute, England)
1912 Indian Society of Oriental Art, Calcutta
1911 Festival of Empire, Crystal Palace, England, organized by the Indian Society of Oriental Art, for the coronation of George Vs
1911 Indian Society of Oriental Art, United Provinces Exhibition, Allahabad
1910 Indian Society of Oriental Art, Calcutta
1909 Exhibition of the Indian Society of Oriental Art, Simla
1908 Inaugural Exhibition, Indian Society of Oriental Art, Calcutta
1976 Declared a National Art Treasure under the Art Treasures and Antiquities Act, 1972, Government of India
1965 Received the Birth Centenary Medal of Tagore from the Asiatic Society of Bengal
1963 D.Litt., Rabindra Bharati University, Calcutta
1958 Silver Jubilee Medal, Academy of Fine Arts
1957 D.Litt., University of Calcutta, Calcutta
1956 Lalit Kala Akademi honored him with a scholarship
1954 Padma Bhushan of the Government of India
1953 Dadabhai Naoroji Memorial Award
1952 D.Litt., Visva Bharati University, Santiniketan
1950 D.Litt., Banaras Hindu University, Banaras
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