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Bikash Bhattacharjee
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"What humans have not seen with their eyes, they see through their habits."
Born in Kolkata in 1940, Bikash Bhattacharjee lost his father at a very early age. In 1963, he graduated from Indian College of Art and Draftsmanship. He joined the same college as professor in 1968. From 1973, Bhattacharjee began teaching at the Government College of Arts and Crafts and taught there till 1982.
Bhattacharjee drew inspiration for his...
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"What humans have not seen with their eyes, they see through their habits."
Born in Kolkata in 1940, Bikash Bhattacharjee lost his father at a very early age. In 1963, he graduated from Indian College of Art and Draftsmanship. He joined the same college as professor in 1968. From 1973, Bhattacharjee began teaching at the Government College of Arts and Crafts and taught there till 1982.
Bhattacharjee drew inspiration for his work from his early dreary days, where vivid images of his struggling - the crumbling walls of buildings and the multitudes of people living there - wove a certain magic in his mind.
His drawings form a fitting introduction to his paintings, revealing the predilection of the artist for forms: forms that are consist in terms of tone rather than line. Bhatacharjee carefully expresses the textural effects of crayons, pastels and pencil using the combination of highlights and depths of passages built of varying intensities of line.
Improbable characters (both psychologically and physiologically) play a role on the canvas and dominate his oils. Yet his work is a powerful combination of realism and fantasy, where reality sets the ball rolling and fantasy helps the canvas assume a new reality.
His subject is always clear, recognizable, painted with faithfulness to detail and invested with a sense of the dramatic. Female beauty is a major preoccupation with him. But he also creates a varied cast of characters in his canvases - old men and women, children, domestic help. The ability to create an authentic milieu as a background to the characters heightens the drama.
Bhattacharjee's women are a strange mixture of spirituality and sensuality. Different moods of the painter are reflected in his different paintings. Some times flesh and blood figures turn shadowy. Where women in his canvas are an abstraction, men appear to live in their own world.
The artist explores the possibilities of oil as a medium and can depict the exact quality of drapery or the skin tone of a woman, the peeling walls of an old building. He had also achieved mastery over the capturing of the quality of light, an effect that lends his work a superb realism as well as an enigmatic quality. His love of cinema had a lot to do with this.
He creates a wide variety of characters in all walks of life, but his preoccupation is with female beauty. His use of art techniques of post Renaissance European oil painting could be responsible for creating this illusion of reality. Indeed, he leaves the viewer thinking, his canvases haunt, his paintings are an enigma that suggest and the mind is but a slave that must follow.
Bhattacharjee is also known for his Kolkata cityscapes that he worked on in his twenties.
He works with many mediums - oil on canvas, tempera, oil on board, pastels on board, watercolor, crayon and pencil.
The artist passed away in 2006.
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Born
June 21, 1940
Died
December 18, 2006
Education
1958-63 Diploma in Fine Arts, Indian College of Arts and Draftsmanship, Kolkata
Exhibitions
Selected Posthumous Exhibitions
2016 'A Passage To Realism',...
Selected Posthumous Exhibitions
2016 'A Passage To Realism', Gallery 7, Mumbai
2016 'Human Face and Urban Space', Aakriti Art Gallery, Kolkata
2013 'The Naked and the Nude: The Body in Indian Modern Art', Delhi Art Gallery, New Delhi
2012-13 'Calcutta Chromosome', The Viewing Room, Mumbai
2011 ‘Manifestations VI', Delhi Art Gallery, New Delhi
2011 ‘Manifestations V', Delhi Art Gallery, New Delhi
2011 'Time Unfolded', Kiran Nadar Museum of Art (KNMA), New Delhi
2010 'Figure/Landscape - Part One', Aicon Gallery, New York
2010 ‘Manifestations IV', Delhi Art Gallery, New Delhi
2009 'Bikash Bhattacharjee: A Retrospective', Emami Chisel, Kolkata; Vadehra Art Gallery, New Delhi
2009 'Master Class', The Arts Trust, Mumbai
2009 'Modern Continuous', Gallerie 88, Kolkata
2009 'In Search of the Vernacular', Aicon Gallery, New York
2008 'Moderns', Royal Cultural Centre, Amman, Jordan organized by Lalit Kala Akademi, New Delhi in collaboration with Embassy of India, Amman, Jordan
2008 'Tales, Reflection and Constructs', ITC Windsor, Bangalore
2008 ‘Freedom 2008 – Sixty Years after Indian Independence’, Centre for International Modern Art (CIMA), Kolkata
Selected Solo Exhibitions
2000 ‘Bikash 2000’, Centre of International Modern Art (CIMA), Kolkata
1998 ‘Reflections’, Gallerie 88, Kolkata
1998 Park Hotel, New Delhi
1997 Birla Academy of Art and Culture, Kolkata
1994 ‘Recent Works’, Jehangir Art Gallery, Mumbai
1993 Gallerie 88, Kolkata
1993 Oberoi Hotel, New Delhi
1992 Taj Art Gallery, Mumbai
1991 Homage, Victoria Memorial, Kolkata
1991 ‘Kala Yatra’, Bangalore
1990 ‘The Boy’, Gallerie 88, Kolkata
1990 ‘Durga II’, Birla Academy of Art and Culture, Kolkata
1989 ‘Sabari’, Gallerie 88, Kolkata
1989 ‘Durga’, Birla Academy of Art and Culture, Kolkata
1989 Jehangir Art Gallery, Mumbai
1987 ‘Environs’, Birla Academy of Art and Culture, Kolkata
1987 ‘Environs’, Jehangir Art Gallery, Mumbai
1987 ‘Oils by Bikash’, Taj Hotel, Mumbai
1986 ‘She’, Taj Art Gallery, Mumbai
1986 ‘She’, Chitrakoot Art Gallery, Kolkata
1984 Jehangir Art Gallery, Mumbai
1982 Calcutta Art Gallery, Kolkata
1982 Gallery Chemould, Mumbai
1977 Dhoomimal Art Gallery, New Delhi
1976 Gallery Chemould, Mumbai
1974 Gallery Chemould, Mumbai
1973 United States Information Centre, Kolkata
1971 ‘Doll Series’, Birla Academy of Art and Culture, Kolkata and Kunika Chemould, New Delhi
1965 Artistry House, Kolkata
1965 Tata Iron and Steel Company, Jamshedpur
Selected Group Exhibitions
1998 ‘Multimedia’, Centre of International Modern Art (CIMA), Kolkata
1997 ‘Colors of Independence’, National Gallery of Modern Art (NGMA), New Delhi
1996 ‘Chamatkara’, Whiteley’s Gallery, London, UK
1995 ‘Fantasy’, Centre of International Modern Art (CIMA), Kolkata
1994 ‘Contemporary Miniatures’, Centre of International Modern Art (CIMA), Kolkata
1994 ‘Group exhibition’, All India Fine Arts and Crafts Society (AIFACS), New Delhi
1993 ‘Wounds’, National Gallery of Modern Art (NGMA), New Delhi and Kolkata
1993 ‘Trends and Images’, Centre of International Modern Art (CIMA), Kolkata
1986 ‘Visions’, Birla Academy of Art and Culture, Kolkata
1985 ‘East -West Visual Encounter’, Mumbai
1985 Grey Art Gallery, New York
1984 ‘Retrospective’, Mumbai
1982 ‘Contemporary Indian Art’, Festival of India, Royal Academy of Arts, Kolkata
1982 ‘India : Myth and Reality’, Museum of Modern Art, Oxford; Hirshhorn Museum, Washington DC
1982 ‘Seven Contemporary Artists’, Birla Academy of Art and Culture, Kolkata
1982 Exhibition of Contemporary Indian Art, Germany
1981 ‘Indian paintings Today’, Mumbai
1981 ‘Four Contemporary Artists of West Bengal’, Kolkata
1980 ‘Miniature Format’, Lalit Kala Akademi, New Delhi
1978 ‘Pictorial Space’, Lalit Kala Akademi, New Delhi
1976 All India Drawing Exhibition
1975 All India Drawing Exhibition
1972 ’25 Years of Indian art’, Lalit Kala Akademi, New Delhi
1972 Exhibition in Yugoslavia, Romania, Czechoslovakia, Hungary
1970 Exhibition in Yugoslavia, Romania, Czechoslovakia, Hungary
Participations
1986 ‘Festival of India’, New York, Boston, Geneva, Moscow
1982 V International Triennale, New Delhi
1975 III International Triennale, New Delhi
1971 II International Triennale, New Delhi
1968 I Interantional Triennale, New Delhi
Honours and Awards
2006 D.Litt, Kalyani University, West Bengal
2004 Fellowship, Lalit...
2006 D.Litt, Kalyani University, West Bengal
2004 Fellowship, Lalit Kala Akademi, New Delhi
2004 Life Time Achievement Award, Doordarshan, Kolkata
1990 Nivedita Purashkar, Ramakrishna Vivekananda Ashram
1989 Shiromani Puraskar, Asian Paints
1988 Padma Shri, Government of India
1987 Bangla Ratna
1972 Birla Academy of Art and Culture, Kolkata
1971National Award, Lalit Kala Akademi, New Delhi
1962 Academy of Fine Arts, Kolkata
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