8 Bengal Masters: Miracles of Existence

Published on the occasion of the show ‘8 Bengal Masters: Miracles of Existence’, this volume explores the post-Colonial context of Bengal that produced some of the finest artists of all times. Focusing on eight eminent artists, from various practices of print-making, sculpture and painting, it traces how they embarked on individual artistic journeys fostered by a renewed modernist search for an appropriate style in tandem with their responses to the contemporary situation. The eight artists showcased here redefined the quest for a personal idiom not as a mere stylistic search but as the intimate and mutually transforming dialogue between individual and the world - both social and natural. From this perspective, this book takes a fresh look at the works of these artists as some of the best examples of the socially-relevant, liberating aesthetics of the post-‘40s modern Indian art. Published in association with Akar Prakar. Contents: Foreword; Curatorial Note by Sylvie de Galleani, Curator of departmental museums; Curatorial Note: Miracles of Existence by Soumik Nandy Majumdar ARTISTS - Paritosh Sen; Somnath Hore; Meera Mukherjee; Sarbari Roy Choudhury; Sanat Kar; Ganesh Haloi; Ganesh Pyne; Jogen Chowdhury.