Sanjoy Kumar Mallik

Gopal GhoseGopal Ghose, born on 5 December, 1913 in Shyambazar (Kolkata), spent his childhood and adolescence shifting between Simla, Benares and Allahabad, since his father was recruited in the army. It was as early as 1927 that his father recognized his son’s interest in visual art and gifted him John Ruskin’s Elements of Drawing. Inspired to participate in the nationalist movement, Gopal Ghose left the Anglo-Bengali College in Allahabad where he was pursuing his Intermediate studies. In 1931, he enrolled as a student at the Maharaja School of Art & Craft, Jaipur, under guidance of Sailendranath Dey, from where he obtained his Diploma in Painting in 1935. Subsequently he enrolled at the Government School of Art, Madras, in 1936 under the tutelage of Deviprosad Roy Chowdhury. Beginning with a pictorial language that was inspired by the latter, Gopal Ghose transformed during the 1940s; his sketches of the infamous man-made famine of 1943 in Bengal and the paintings executed during his association with the collective Calcutta Group testify his shift to a more contextually relevant pictorial diction. During the early 1940s, he taught at the Indian Society of Oriental Art, Kolkata, before he joined the Government School of Art, Kolkata where he taught till 1972. His 1947 exhibition at the Exhibition Hall, Parliament Street, New Delhi was much appreciated by Prime Minister Jawahalal Nehru.

Gopal Ghose received appreciative recommendations from renowned personalities including Rabindranath Tagore, Abanindranath Tagore, Nandalal Bose and Stella Kramrisch.

In 1956, he was one of the participants in a collective project involving designs by Contemporary Asian Artists engraved on Steuben Crystal exhibited at National Gallery of Art, Washington and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. In 1963, he went on a tour of the USA as part of the Foreign Leader programme of the Bureau of Education and Cultural Affairs, US Department of State. In 1979, he was invited to attend a round table meeting with the Governor of Bengal, Mr. T.N. Singh at Raj Bhavan, Kolkata.

Diagnosed with lung-cancer, he was under medical care, but breathed his last on 30 July, 1980.

With 316 illustrations

Sanjoy Kumar Mallik(Dr). Sanjoy Kumar Mallik, presently Associate Professor and Head of the Department, Department of History of Art at Kala Bhavana, Visva Bharati (Santiniketan), completed his graduate studies in painting from Kala Bhavana and his post-graduate studies and doctoral research in art history from the Department of Art History & Aesthetics, Faculty of Fine Arts, M.S. University of Baroda.

While his master’s level dissertation explored the pictorial language and narrative structure in 17th century ‘Malwa’ miniatures, his doctoral thesis addressed the issue of the ‘modern’ in Bengal, for the transitory decade of the 1940s, situating the trajectory of the visual arts in a contextual relationship with other forms of cultural expression.

During the course of his doctoral research project, on the one hand, he investigated the confluence of political movements and cultural manifestations in the context of the infamous “famine” of 1943-44 in Bengal. On the other hand, the project addressed the avowed inclinations towards a modernist linguistic choice in the phenomenon of the Calcutta Group. His interest in the oeuvre of Gopal Ghosh was reaffirmed during this project.

Sanjoy Mallik’s research interests trace a varied course from traditional Indian art to the issues of contemporary practice, and his essays have appeared in the art history journals Nandan (Visva Bharati), Bichitra (Rabindra Bharati University, Kolkata) and the Lalit Kala Contemporary (New Delhi). He has contributed a modest section on the art of the 1940s to the publications Indian Art: An Overview (Ed. Gayatri Sinha; Rupa & Co., New Delhi, 2004), and Art and Visual Culture in India: 1857–2007 (Ed. Gayatri Sinha; Marg Publications, Mumbai, 2009). He was invited by the Lalit Kala Akademi to curate an exhibition of works by young Indian artists, christened To opt is to commit, which was held at the Saad Zaghloul Cultural Centre, Cairo in November 2008. His monograph on the recent works of the faculty members of Kala Bhavana is titled Negotiating tradition/navigating the present (Visva Bharati, Santiniketan 2010).

His recent curatorial project culminated in a retrospective exhibition of the artist Chittaprosad, in which the painter’s life-time output was thoroughly documented in a five-volume publication that included a two-volume monograph, two facsimile reproductions of the artist’s sketchbooks, and a book of translation of select letters by the artist (“Chittaprosad”, Delhi Art Gallery, New Delhi, August 2011).

Mallik

Sanjoy Kumar Mallik

Gopal GhoseGopal Ghose, born on 5 December, 1913 in Shyambazar (Kolkata), spent his childhood and adolescence shifting between Simla, Benares and Allahabad, since his father was recruited in the army. It was as early as 1927 that his father recognized his son’s interest in visual art and gifted him John Ruskin’s Elements of Drawing. Inspired to participate in the nationalist movement, Gopal Ghose left the Anglo-Bengali College in Allahabad where he was pursuing his Intermediate studies. In 1931, he enrolled as a student at the Maharaja School of Art & Craft, Jaipur, under guidance of Sailendranath Dey, from where he obtained his Diploma in Painting in 1935. Subsequently he enrolled at the Government School of Art, Madras, in 1936 under the tutelage of Deviprosad Roy Chowdhury. Beginning with a pictorial language that was inspired by the latter, Gopal Ghose transformed during the 1940s; his sketches of the infamous man-made famine of 1943 in Bengal and the paintings executed during his association with the collective Calcutta Group testify his shift to a more contextually relevant pictorial diction. During the early 1940s, he taught at the Indian Society of Oriental Art, Kolkata, before he joined the Government School of Art, Kolkata where he taught till 1972. His 1947 exhibition at the Exhibition Hall, Parliament Street, New Delhi was much appreciated by Prime Minister Jawahalal Nehru.

Gopal Ghose received appreciative recommendations from renowned personalities including Rabindranath Tagore, Abanindranath Tagore, Nandalal Bose and Stella Kramrisch.

In 1956, he was one of the participants in a collective project involving designs by Contemporary Asian Artists engraved on Steuben Crystal exhibited at National Gallery of Art, Washington and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. In 1963, he went on a tour of the USA as part of the Foreign Leader programme of the Bureau of Education and Cultural Affairs, US Department of State. In 1979, he was invited to attend a round table meeting with the Governor of Bengal, Mr. T.N. Singh at Raj Bhavan, Kolkata.

Diagnosed with lung-cancer, he was under medical care, but breathed his last on 30 July, 1980.

With 316 illustrations

Sanjoy Kumar Mallik(Dr). Sanjoy Kumar Mallik, presently Associate Professor and Head of the Department, Department of History of Art at Kala Bhavana, Visva Bharati (Santiniketan), completed his graduate studies in painting from Kala Bhavana and his post-graduate studies and doctoral research in art history from the Department of Art History & Aesthetics, Faculty of Fine Arts, M.S. University of Baroda.

While his master’s level dissertation explored the pictorial language and narrative structure in 17th century ‘Malwa’ miniatures, his doctoral thesis addressed the issue of the ‘modern’ in Bengal, for the transitory decade of the 1940s, situating the trajectory of the visual arts in a contextual relationship with other forms of cultural expression.

During the course of his doctoral research project, on the one hand, he investigated the confluence of political movements and cultural manifestations in the context of the infamous “famine” of 1943-44 in Bengal. On the other hand, the project addressed the avowed inclinations towards a modernist linguistic choice in the phenomenon of the Calcutta Group. His interest in the oeuvre of Gopal Ghosh was reaffirmed during this project.

Sanjoy Mallik’s research interests trace a varied course from traditional Indian art to the issues of contemporary practice, and his essays have appeared in the art history journals Nandan (Visva Bharati), Bichitra (Rabindra Bharati University, Kolkata) and the Lalit Kala Contemporary (New Delhi). He has contributed a modest section on the art of the 1940s to the publications Indian Art: An Overview (Ed. Gayatri Sinha; Rupa & Co., New Delhi, 2004), and Art and Visual Culture in India: 1857–2007 (Ed. Gayatri Sinha; Marg Publications, Mumbai, 2009). He was invited by the Lalit Kala Akademi to curate an exhibition of works by young Indian artists, christened To opt is to commit, which was held at the Saad Zaghloul Cultural Centre, Cairo in November 2008. His monograph on the recent works of the faculty members of Kala Bhavana is titled Negotiating tradition/navigating the present (Visva Bharati, Santiniketan 2010).

His recent curatorial project culminated in a retrospective exhibition of the artist Chittaprosad, in which the painter’s life-time output was thoroughly documented in a five-volume publication that included a two-volume monograph, two facsimile reproductions of the artist’s sketchbooks, and a book of translation of select letters by the artist (“Chittaprosad”, Delhi Art Gallery, New Delhi, August 2011).

Mallik