Somnath Hore (1921-2006)
Faculty of Fine Arts, Vadodara, 1960

Somnath Hore was born in 1921, in a village called Barama in Chittagong, present day Bangladesh. While he was still very young, he started making posters for the Communist party. It was with the help of the leader of this party that he was admitted into the Government College of Art & Craft.

Between the years 1954 to 1967, Hore handled a number of jobs in various capacities. From 1954 to 1958 he was a lecturer at the Indian College of Art and Draftsmanship in Kolkata. Thereafter, until 1967, he held posts such as the “in-charge of the Graphic section” at the Delhi College of Art, visiting faculty at the M S University, Baroda and the head of the Graphic Art department of Kala Bhavana, Visva-Bharati, Santiniketan. In 1960, he became a member of the Society of Contemporary Artists.

From 1974, Hore began to produce his bronze sculptures. “Mother with Child”, a large sculpture that paid homage to the people’s struggle in Vietnam. It was stolen from the Kala Bhavana soon
after it was completed and still has yet to be found.

The anguished human form has widely been reflected in Hore’s figuration. The visual appeal of his work is increased by rough surfaces, slits, holes and exposed channels.

He died in Santiniketan, West Bengal in the year 2006.

Paritosh Sen (1918-2008)
Sen residence, Kolkata, 1989

Paritosh Sen was born 1918 in Dhaka, now Bangladesh and ran away from home to study art after reading the art journal Prabasi. He studied Fine Arts at the Government College of Arts and Crafts, Chennai and moved to Calcutta in 1942. There he founded and formed the Calcutta Group, an art movement that worked towards introducing modernism into Indian art.

Sen was widely known for his caricatures that reflected the contemporary socio-political mood of that era. He is also known for his female nude drawings. Sen travelled to England and France where his style of expression got influenced by the western modern art. Meeting Pablo Picasso was one of the most inspiring episodes in his life as an artist. The underlying theme of most of his works is the oppression of the poor and thus his palette used a lot of shades from brown to depict the strong and bold strokes. He depicted the everyday urban life with a critical approach.

He was a prolific writer who published many of his works in both Bengali and in English. His art has been exhibited in India and internationally. The French government conferred on him the L’officier de l’ordere des arts et des letters and Lalit Kala Akademi honoured him with the title Lalit Kala Ratna in 2004. He passed away in 2008 in Kolkata.

Dhanraj Bhagat (1917-1988)
Konark Temple, Odisha, 1974

Dhanraj Bhagat was born in 1917 in Lahore and did his diploma from the Mayo School of Art in Lahore. He served as the head of the Sculpture Department at the College of Art, New Delhi, from 1947 to 1977 and began experimenting with different mediums for sculpting. He found clay to be uninspiring and thus used wood in most of his renowned sculptures. He also used materials like papier-mâché, aluminium, copper and stone for his work and made several paintings towards the later part of his life. Initially his sculptures carried a certain fluidity and sensual touch. However post seeing the horrors of the partition, the artworks became more geometric and incorporated rough edges.

Bhagat participated in the first three Triennales staged in India, The All India Sculpture Exhibition in 1954 and many exhibitions held at galleries such as Bombay Art Society, the Academy of Fine Arts, Kolkata, and the All India Fine Arts and Crafts Society, New Delhi. He was awarded the Padma Shri by the Government of India in 1977.

He died in 1988 at the age of 71 and the Government College of Art, Chandigarh, an offshoot of the former Mayo School of Art – the almamater of Bhagat, established a sculpture park at its premises in 2010, which they named after him.

N B Joglekar (1916-2005)
Faculty of Fine Arts, Vadodara, 1958-59

Narayan Balaji Joglekar was born in 1916 and undertook the study of art from J. J. School of Art, Mumbai. He also travelled to London and studied Diploma in Graphic Arts. Post his education he came back to India and became a teacher at the Faculty of Fine Arts, M S University, Baroda. This was the same time that India was getting exposed to the British and American artworks and print making was developed. The art center of India was also shifting from Bengal to Mumbai and Vadodara.

Joglekar played a prominent role as a teacher by giving students an environment of creative liberalism and experimentation. His technical expertise gave students the know-how of lithographs and equipped them to pursue interactions between art and print. He had a teaching career that spanned for 25 years and retired as the Head of the Department. He visited France, Belgium, Germany and many other European countries where he interacted with prominent teachers of various art institutions including Pablo Picasso. He had participated in many exhibitions of the Lalit Kala Akademi, New Delhi Awards and AIFACS awards as well.

Joglekar was one of the pioneering teachers at the Faculty of Fine Arts, between the years 1951-1974 and took lead in developing the print making techniques at the institute. He died in 2005 in Vadodara.

Sankho Chaudhuri (1916-2006)
Port Blair, Andaman-Nicobar, 1989

Sankho Chaudhuri was born in 1916 in Santhal Purganas, Bihar. He completed his Bachelor of Arts from Santiniketan in 1939, after which he further studied under the guidance of Ramkinkar Baij and received a Diploma in Fine Art with distinction in Sculpture from Kala Bhavana, Santiniketan. Baij remained a very influential person in his life and helped him shape his own individual style.

In 1949, he went on a study tour of Europe where he worked in Paris and England and visited art centres of Italy, Switzerland, Belgium and Netherlands. He constantly strove to experiment and innovate with material, style and technique. The Sculpture Department activities at Vadodara began with Chaudhuri coming as a ‘Reader’ to the Faculty of Fine Arts.

He was the 1st Honorary Joint Secretary of the Indian Sculptors Association, Mumbai and received the Padma Shri in 1971. He passed away in August 2006 at New Delhi.

M F Husain (1915-2011)
Urja Art Gallery, Vadodara, 1986

Maqbool Fida Husain was born in 1915 in Pandharpur in Maharashtra. He was schooled in Indore before moving to Mumbai. Later he spent less than a year at the J. J. School of Art, where he was inspired by the modern innovations in European art and the works of Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque.

In 1947, he was one of the founding members of the ‘Progressive Artists’ Group’. His background in cinema hoarding painting gave rise to two pivotal aspects of his future practice: an understanding of how to communicate visually with the ‘everyman’ of India; and a strong appreciation for the high drama of Bollywood.

He participated in or has been the subject of numerous exhibitions throughout the world, including Sao Paulo Biennale, the Contemporary Indian Art exhibition at the Royal Academy, London, and the India, Myth and Reality: Aspects of Contemporary Indian Art exhibition at the MoMA, New York.

He was awarded the Padma Shri in 1966, the Padma Bhushan in 1973 and the Padma Vibhushan in 1991. Google commemorated him with a doodle on his birth centenary in 2015.

There have been many publications on his work, notably Richard Bartholomew and Shiv Kapur’s monograph. He was also a filmmaker, and member of the Indian Parliament from 1986 to 1992. He spent his last remaining years between Dubai, Doha and London and passed away in London in 2011.

Markand Bhatt (1915-2006)
Faculty of Fine Arts, Vadodara, 1970

Markand Chhaganlal Bhatt was born in 1915 in Bhavnagar and was first educated at Dakshinamurti at Bhavnagar under the guidance of artist Somalal Shah. He received his diploma from the J. J. School of Art in 1937.

He started his career drawing at the Natraj Theater Bhavnagar and then at the Harijan Sevak Sangha in Delhi apart from doing some freelance work. He then worked out of his Mumbai studio for 4 years and later studied in Philadelphia for 3 years. He toured various art galleries and schools in America and Europe before coming to India.

There were no institutions in India at that time that professionally taught various art forms in one place and art education was also not given priority. He met Hansa Mehta who invited him to organize the Faculty of Fine Arts, Baroda. He got varied departments like painting, sculpture, pottery, applied arts, graphics, art history and criticism and museology under one roof. He also started a college for Indian Music, Dance and Dramatics. He initiated Masters and doctorate programs in all the fields in 1954.

He was invited as visiting faculty in Canada and also exhibited his work there. He was the Dean of the Faculty of Fine Arts, Baroda from 1950-1960. He married his colleague Parviz from the Faculty of Social Science and later lived in Tehran for some time. He then settled in Canada where he passed away in March 2006.

Shiavax Chavda (1914-1990)
Sankho Chaudhuri’s residence, Vadodara, 1957-59

Shiavax Chavda was born in 1914 in Navsari, Gujarat and joined the J. J. School of Art, Mumbai in 1930. He went to London to study at the Slade School under Professor Randolph in 1935 and in 1937, he further studied at the ‘Academie de la Grande Chaumiere’, Paris. During this time he worked alongside Leon Bakst and Picasso in designing the sets for the’ Diaghelev Ballet’.

Chavda had a deep association with dance – as deep as his association with the short-lived but extraordinary ‘Progressive Artists’ Group’. His paintings depicted men and women in dance, across communities, styles and countries. As he travelled widely, he was found keeping a sketchbook travelogue of all he saw which included temples, fauna, masks, sculptures, and importantly dance.

He acted as an illustrator for books on dance and anthropology, volumes of children’s stories, and magazines. His portraits of musicians, dancers, and sitters at large suggest a practice calibrated midway between salon and gallery. He also worked with filmmakers, working on costumes, headgear and architectural detailing for the 1966 film ‘Amrapali’. His paintings are part of collections, both in India and abroad, including the Victoria & Albert Museum London, Budapest Museum and The National Gallery of Modern Art, New
Delhi among others. He passed away in 1990 in Mumbai.

K H Ara (1914-1985)
Jehangir Art Gallery, Mumbai, 1967

Krishnaji Howlaji Ara was born in Bolarum, Secunderabad in April 1914. He was the son of a chauffeur and ran away to Mumbai at the age of seven. He was a self-taught artist who struggled with poverty and made a living by cleaning cars. He was imprisoned for participating in Gandhi’s Salt Satyagraha Movement, yet even in such adverse circumstances he continued painting in his spare time.

Ara painted landscapes and paintings on socio-historical themes, but he is widely known for his still life and nudes. He was one of the first contemporary artists to use the female nude as a subject, not straying from the limits of naturalism. While he initially used watercolours, he later moved on to the use of oil paints. He was one of the founding members of the ‘Progressive Artists’ Group’ which was disbanded and renamed into the ‘Bombay Group’ in 1954-55 after the joining of K K Hebbar. He was also the founder and secretary of the Artists’ Aid Center and trustee of the Jehangir Art Gallery in Mumbai.

Amongst Ara’s many honours are the prestigious Governor’s Award for painting in 1944, and the Gold Medal from the Bombay Art Society in 1952. He passed away in Mumbai in 1985.

K K Hebbar (1911-1996)
Sankho Chaudhuri’s residence, Vadodara, 1957-59

Kattingeri Krishna Hebbar was born in South Karnataka in a village called Kittingiri in 1911. His father making clay idols during festivals, inspired the young child to make toys and develop an inclination towards the arts. He would also try to replicate the mythological images of Ravi Varma using charcoal on the walls of his house. He formally pursued art at the J. J. School of Art, Mumbai, which shaped his individual style. In 1949, he studied at the Academie Julian in Paris, and came across some of the best works of Western art. However, Hebbar felt a strong urge to paint in a genre which drew from traditional Indian art. Most of his work carries compositions and landscapes rooted in the Indian sensibilities. He learned the dance form Kathak to understand rhythm, and created his own unique style, rhythm and colour. He belonged to a generation of artists that was self- conscious about their national identity in thought and attitude.

His body of work starting from 1946 and covering more or less a decade has been influential in the development of modern Indian art and occupies an important place in Indian art history. He has also participated in the 1955 Venice Biennale, and the 1959 Sao Paulo Biennale. He was a corresponding Member of the Academy of Arts, Berlin, between 1975 to 1993. Hebbar was honoured with the Padma Shri in 1961, Padma Bhushan in 1989, and the Maharashtra Shasan Gourav Puraskar in 1990. He passed away in 1996 at the age of 85 in Mumbai.