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Gopal Ghose, born in Shyambazar (Kolkata), spent his childhood and adolescence shifting between Simla, Benares and Allahabad. In 1931–35, he obtained his Diploma in Painting from the Maharaja School of Art & Craft, Jaipur, under guidance of Sailendranath Dey. 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 to a great extent by the Bengal School diction, his personal language 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 that was oriented towards a boisterous exploration of the chromatic. But the entire range of his oeuvre testifies a more diverse formal quest that goes well beyond the celebratory.
Published in association with National Gallery of Modern Art, New Delhi, and Akar Prakar, the book also includes essays by Prodosh Dasgupta, Prasanta Daw, and Purnima Sinha, who all knew Gopal Ghose, offering varied perspectives to the reader.
About the Author
Dr. Sanjoy Kumar Mallik, presently Associate Professor and Head of the Department, Department of History of Art at Kala Bhavana, Visva Bharati (Santiniketan), did his graduate studies in painting from Kala Bhavana and his post-graduate studies and doctoral research in art history from Faculty of Fine Arts, M.S. University of Baroda. 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 various history journals.
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