Signature Images Edition-II

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Signature Images

Edition II

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SHOWING WORKS BY

NIRANJHAN PRADHAN
LALU PRASAD SHAW
KG SUBRAMANYAN

PARITOSH SEN
HIMMAT SHAH

SUHAS ROY
BIJON CHOUDHURY
PRAKASH KARMAKAR

MANU PAREKH
LAXMA GOUD
BADRINARAYAN

GALLERY KOLKATA
2nd Floor, Duckback House 41, Shakespeare Sarani

(Near Kala Mandir), Kolkata - 700017 WB
M : +91-9339839386 T +91 33 22873377
E: [email protected] | [email protected] |

W : www.gallerykolkata.com

Signature Images

Edition II | DEC 2020

In 2007 , the Gallery held the 1st Edition of the Show Signature Images . The
show traced the works of 7 Modernist whose styles have become iconic
signatures. Most of it is true for any huge artist. Cant we tell a Picasso from a
Andy Warhol or a Monet from a Van Gogh. Each artist have created a
successful style of their own .

Often Collectors would know the Signature works of the Artists and Collect and
patronize a certain style of theirs , disregarding any other work or series or
style they may adopt . This is also due to the fact that the art lovers and
collectors have become so enchanted with one particular style of theirs that
commercial success for other series of their works often get extremely limited
often pushing artists to repeatedly make a certain kind of work for
commercial viability.

Whether it is Akbar Padamsee with his Metascapes or the Chinese ink
drawings of Nudes as well as Heads of People , or Closer Home Suhas Roy who
has Taken the enchanting image of the image of an Adorned or unadorned
woman to global success . Sunil Das was Nicked Ghora Das for this sheer
shooting to success due to his drawings of horses and Bulls .

Badri Narayan's Works are easy to discern , influenced by the miniature style of
work . Paritosh Sen's play of with the Foreground and Background very much
the influence of Picasso's Cubist style of work .

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Signature Images

Edition II | DEC 2020

Senior Sculptor of Bengal, Niranjan Pradhan has his own unique style
which tells his works apart from his contemporaries most easily . Even
Artists who have primarily been Painters and then tried their had in
Sculptures eg Bengal's Senior Master Artist Lalu Prasad Shaw
who is famous for his drawings of the Bengali Babu & Biwis turned to teh
same imagery even while doing his sculptures. His Signature Style that is
predominant in his paintigns are impressed very well in the sculptures as
well.

KG Subramanyan , Prakash Karmakar, Bijon Choudhury each have their
own distinctive style that makes their paintings stand out .
Having an image as a style is not to say that these artists have not
experimented with different styles and genres; its just that in their ouver
of art practice certain imageries and styles became iconic and
recognised. This speaks for the success of an artist where they have been
able to attain a definite style to their works

This in turn marks their genius , hold over their own individual languages
and styles that in turn inspire the younger generation of artists.

We sincerely hope that the Viewers through our online catalogue would
be able to enjoy few works of each of these artists that we bring forth to
them .

Meghna Agarwala
Director

3

Sculptures have been one of the oldest
forms of artworks found in history 1st
found in the Indus Valley Civilization in

the Mohenjodaro and Harappa
civilization, where architecture and the
terracotta sculptures found were proof

of the living civilization .

5

Niranjan Pradhan emerged as an important sculptor from
Calcutta, India in the late 1960s. Intuitive beauty and docile
lyrical sensibility coupled with harmonious display of sharp,
geometrically defined structural surfaces are the basic
characteristics of his three dimensional art. His forms evolve
from the inner core of life, from the environment around him.
In that sense he is a reality conscious artist. ginal form
during the 1970.
His forms are very much modern and flow as an extension of
European geometrical cubistic modes; but the root of his
consciousness within his own soil helps him to foster his own
identity developing modernity within his own heritage.

Niranjan Pradhan

b 1940

6

Sri Aurobindo | Bronze
L7.5 x W3.5 x H10.5 inches
2002

7

side views

8

Niranjan Pradhan
Bull | Bronze
L16.5 x W 7 x H16.5 inches
2002

9

Bull - Another view

10

Niranjan Pradhan

Mother & Child | Bronze
L17 x W 10 x H 26 inches
2005

11

Mother & Child
details

12

Mother & Child
details

13

Mother & Child
details

14

Niranjan
Pradhan
Buddha
Bronze
L 17 x H
25.5 x W8.5
inches

15

Buddha details

16

Niranjan Pradhan
Father & Child | Bronze
L4 x H11 x W3 inches

17

Father & Child
another view

18

Niranjan Pradhan
Mother & Child
Bronze
L6 x H15 x W5 inches
2010

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Mother & Child
details

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Shaw has exhibited extensively in India and abroad and his
works form part of national and international collections.
Based in Kolkata, Shaw has received such prestigious awards
as the West Bengal Lalit Kala Akademi Award, the National
Award and the Birla Academy Award. He lives and works in
Kolkata.

Known widely for his highly stylized portraits of Bengali
women and couples, Lalu Prasad Shaw’s works lay the most
emphasis on his subject’s physical characteristics. Capturing
the expressions of his subjects perfectly with the greatest
economy of line and colour each of Shaw’s paintings has an
intimate feel to it.

Lalu Prasad Shaw

b 1937

21

Lalu Prasad Shaw
Babu Saheb | Bronze
Edition 3/5
16 x 13 x 14 inches

22

Babu Saheb
details

23

24

Lalu Prasad Shaw

Joubana | Bronze
Edition-5
27 x 21 x 18 inches

25

Joubana
details

26

Lalu Prasad Shaw
Babuana | Bronze

Edition 3/5
44 x 23 x 16 inches

27

Lalu Prasad Shaw
Babuana | Bronze
Edition 3/5
44 x 23 x 16 inches

28

Lalu Prasad Shaw
Babuana | Bronze

Edition 3/5
44 x 23 x 16 inches

29

Babu
Tempera on Board
21 x 15 inches | 2018

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Born in Kerala on 15 February 1924, K G Subramanyan was one of the
leading artists who was part of India’s post-Independence search for
identity through art. He completed his Bachelor’s Degree in Economics
from the Presidency College in Chennai. In 1948, he graduated from
Kala Bhavan in Santiniketan, where he studied under the tutelage of
Benode Behari Mukherjee, Nandalal Bose and Ramkinkar Baij.
His prominent black line recalls Pablo Picasso and F. N. Souza, but only
serves, in his case, to differentiate his figures from the surface of the
work, the volume from the plane. Known for the sensuality of his
imagery and figures, the nightly backdrops and the reflective faces,
Subramanyan’s paintings reveal a continued cubist influence. A
revered teacher and theoretician, Subramanyan is a well-known fiction
writer and poet and has written extensively on art. He lives and works
in Baroda.

K.G. Subhramanian

1924 - 2016

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KG Subramanyan | Pastel & Charcoal On Paper 22x 14 inches

32

KG Subramanyan | Pastel & Charcoal On Paper | 22x 14 inches

33

Bijan Choudhury was a Bengal-born painter known for his activities
as part of the Calcutta Painters in India. Choudhury was born in
Faridpur, Bengal in 1931. He moved to Calcutta where he studied at
the Government College of Art and Craft.

Bijan Chowdhury has worked on the imagery of Bengali poetry as it
has evolved since its earliest days to the present, covering almost
more than four centuries of poetical development. His paintings
have narrative elements but are in no way illustrative. He is here
both as a composer and interpreter. His archetypal imagery and
symbolism are not explicit as in the recent Indian variety of
Surrealism and fantastic art. He has always avoided the sensational
and the fearful aspects of art.

Bijan Choudhury

1931 - 2012

34

Bijan Choudhury
Baul Players
Mixed Media on Canvas
42 x 48 inches | 2007

35

Bijan Choudhury
Raga
Oil and Acrylic on Canvas
48 x 48 inches | 2006

36

Bijan Choudhury
Untitled
Oil and Acrylic on Canvas
36 x 42 inches | 2006

37

Mondal’s figuration derives from a growing abhorrence towards
mankind’s moral decay in all spheres of life. The cubo-futuristic
angularities of forms within the pictorial space arranged around
them evolved into a series of paintings depicting highly distinct
human figures that struggle to live a hero’s life in a mocking but
tragic world.

Mondal’s images have a deeply felt iconic appearance.
The series Queen, King, Man represent figures that are static,
totemic, tragicomic, ruthlessly shattered and ruined. Having
subverted the classical canons of harmony and beauty, Mondal
invented a language in paint that could express his anguish and rage
towards the decadence and frequent inhumanity he saw.

Rabin Mondal

1929 - 2019

38

Ganesha
Acrylic on Canvas
36 x 42 inches | 2016

39

King
Acrylic on Paper
16 x 12 inches | 2000

40

King
Acrylic on Canvas
36 x 42 inches | 2016

41

Born in 1936, Suhas Roy become famous for his “Christ” & Radha,he
studied at the Indian College of Arts and draughtsmanship, Kolkata, and
further studied Graphic Art under SW Hayter, atelier 17, Paris and Murals
at Lecole Superiecure Des Beaux Arts, Paris. A legend now, he also
studied murals at the Ecole des beaux arts with several solo shows to his
credit in Kolkata and New Delhi.
He is one of the biggest and the most enduring names in the genre of
Indian Modern Art. Often dubbed the father of female figurative forms.
Consequently, his body of works, "Drops of Silence", executed in oil,
pastels and pen-and-ink etchings on backdrops in watercolours, are all
studies of "sad, slightly surreal nude women floating in a void". Roy's
forte is Radhika - dark, enigmatic, beautiful Indian women who do not
smile and are slightly "ethereal". The art world lost the great master
artist in the year 2015.

Suhas Roy

1936 - 2016

42

Suhas Roy 43
Radha
Mixed Media on Paper
16 x 12 inches | 2003

Suhas Roy
Radha | Mixed Media on Paper
12 x 16 inches | 2013

44

Suhas Roy
Radha | Pastel on Paper
17 x 14 inches

45

Sunil Das was an Indian expressionist painter. He is known for the paintings
in his Bull Series and his piece "Woman". In 2014 the Government of India
conferred upon him its fourth-highest civilian award, the Padma Shri.
He was a Master Modern Indian Artist from Bengal . Extremely successful
right from his college days , Sunil Das has been extremely well lauded by art
critics, the press , artists and the art and culture glitterati across the world.
His style of work is very original and shows no specific influence. He had
risen to fame like MF Hussain with his paintings of horses. Like Hussain,
Sunil Das was inspired by the force and the strength of the moving horse.
The horses and the bull have appeared more than 7000 times in Das’s works.
He has otherwise painted haunting pictures of women thereby revealing the
dark side of people who are otherwise considered beautiful. Horses and
Bulls running, in motion are the major themes in Das’s works. The other
recurring theme is the woman with a dark face, haunted and haunting to the
viewer.

Sunil Das

1939 - 2015

46

Sunil Das
Horse
Pastel on Paper
8 x 10.5 inches

47

Sunil Das
Memory of Spain 62

Acrylic on Paper
11 x 14 inches

48

Sunil Das
Untitled
Ink on Paper
8.5 x 7 inches | 1960

49

Sunil Das
Horse
9 x 6 inches
2012

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