Bikash Bhattacharjee

BIKASH BHATTACHARJEE

WAS BORN

June 21, 1940

HE DIED

December 18, 2006

EDUCATIONAL QUALIFICATIONS

1958-63 Diploma in Fine Arts, Indian College of Arts and Draftsmanship, Kolkata

TITLE: DURGA

ARTIST NAME: BIKASH BHATTACHARJEE

MEDIUM: OIL ON CANVAS

SIZE: 48 X 48 INCHES

YEAR: 1962

STATUS: AVAILABLE

PRICE ON REQUEST

ABOUT THE ARTIST

"What humans have not seen with their eyes, they see through their habits."

Born in Calcutta in 1940, Bikash Bhattacharjee lost his father at a very young age. In 1963, he graduated from the Indian College of Art and Draftsmanship. He joined the same university as a professor in 1968. From 1973, Bhattacharjee began teaching at the Government School of Arts and Crafts and taught there until 1982.

Bhattacharjee was inspired for his work in his early sad days, where the vivid images of his struggle - the collapsed walls of buildings and the crowds of people who live there - wove certain magic into his mind.

His drawings form a fitting introduction to his paintings, revealing the artist's predilection for shapes: shapes that are consistent in terms of tone rather than line. Bhattacharjee carefully expresses the texture effects of crayons, pastels, and pencils using the combination of lights and depths of passages constructed with different line intensities.

Unlikely characters (both psychologically and physiologically) play a role on the canvas and dominate the oil paintings of it. However, his work is a powerful combination of realism and fantasy, where reality gets the ball rolling and fantasy helps the canvas take on a new reality.

His subject is always clear, recognizable, painted with fidelity to detail, and invested with a sense of the dramatic. Female beauty is one of his main concerns. But he also creates a diverse cast of characters on his canvases: old men and women, children, domestic servants. The ability to create an authentic setting against the background of the characters enhances the drama.

The women of Bhattacharjee are a strange mix of spirituality and sensuality. The different moods of the painter are reflected in his different paintings of him. Sometimes the figures of flesh and blood turn gloomy. Where the women on his canvas are an abstraction, the men seem to live in their own world.

The artist explores the possibilities of oil as a medium and can represent the exact quality of the curtains or the skin tone of a woman, the peeling walls of an old building. He too had mastered capturing the quality of light, an effect that gives his work superb realism and enigmatic quality. His love for movies had a lot to do with this.

He creates a wide variety of characters from all walks of life, but his concern is female beauty. His use of artistic techniques from post-Renaissance European oil painting could be responsible for creating this illusion of reality. In fact, he leaves the viewer thinking, his canvases lurk, his paintings are an enigma suggesting that the mind is nothing more than a slave to be followed.

Bhattacharjee is also known for his Calcutta cityscapes that he worked on when he was twenty years old.

He works with many mediums: oil on canvas, tempera, oil on panel, pastels on panel, watercolor, crayon, and pencil.

The artist passed away in 2006.

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 'Masterclass', The Arts Trust, Mumbai

2009 'Modern Continuous', Gallerie 88, Calcutta

2009 'In Search of the Vernacular', Aicon Gallery, New York

2008 'Moderns', Royal Cultural Center, Amman, Jordan, organized by Lalit Kala Akademi, New Delhi in collaboration with the Embassy of India, Amman, Jordan

2008 'Tales, reflections and constructions', ITC Windsor, Bangalore

2008 "Freedom 2008 - Sixty years after the independence of India", Center for International Modern Art (CIMA), Calcutta

SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS

2000 "Bikash 2000", Center for 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 Tribute, Victoria Memorial, Kolkata

1991 "Kala Yatra", Bangalore

1990 "The Boy", Gallerie 88, Calcutta

1990 "Durga II", Birla Academy of Art and Culture, Kolkata

1989 "Sabari", Gallerie 88, Calcutta

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, Calcutta

1984 Jehangir Art Gallery, Mumbai

1982 Calcutta Art Gallery, Kolkata

1982 Gallery Chemould, Mumbai

1977 Dhoomimal Art Gallery, New Delhi

1976 Chemould Gallery, Mumbai

1974 Chemould Gallery, Mumbai

1973 United States Information Center, Kolkata

1971 "Doll Series", Birla Academy of Art and Culture, Kolkata and Kunika Chemould, New Delhi

1965 Artistry House, Calcutta

1965 Tata Iron and Steel Company, Jamshedpur

SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS

1998 "Multimedia", Center for International Modern Art (CIMA), Kolkata

1997 "Colors of Independence", National Gallery of Modern Art (NGMA), New Delhi

1996 "Chamatkara", Whiteley's Gallery, London, United Kingdom

1995 "Fantasy", Center for International Modern Art (CIMA), Kolkata

1994 "Contemporary Miniatures", Center for 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 Calcutta

1993 "Trends and Images", Center for International Modern Art (CIMA), Kolkata

1986 "Visions", Birla Academy of Art and Culture, Kolkata

1985 "East-West Visual Encounter", Mumbai

1985 Gray Art Gallery, New York

1984 "Retrospective", Mumbai

1982 "Contemporary Indian Art", Festival of India, Royal Academy of Arts, Calcutta

1982 “India: myth and reality, Oxford Museum of Modern Art; 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 from West Bengal", Calcutta

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 Triennial, New Delhi

1975 III International Triennial, New Delhi

1971 II International Triennial, New Delhi

1968 I International Triennial, New Delhi

HONORS AND AWARD

2006 D. Litt, Kalyani University, West Bengal

2004 Scholarship, Lalit Kala Akademi, New Delhi

2004 Life Time Achievement Award, Doordarshan, Kolkata

1990 Nivedita Purashkar, Ramakrishna Vivekananda Ashram

1989 Shiromani Puraskar, Asian Paintings

1988 Padma Shri, Government of India

1987 Bangla Ratna

1972 Birla Academy of Art and Culture, Kolkata

1971 National Award, Lalit Kala Akademi, New Delhi

1962 Academy of Fine Arts, Kolkata