ArtsBespoke

The Artists of the House · 27

Sunil Das

1939 to 2015 · Calcutta (now Kolkata)

Kolkata painter and draughtsman best known for his powerful drawings and paintings of horses and bulls.

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Born
1939
Died
2015
Birthplace
Calcutta (now Kolkata)
Medium
Oil on canvas, Charcoal, Drawing

Sunil Das was born in Calcutta in 1939 and joined the Government College of Art and Craft there in 1955. He later won a French Government scholarship to study at the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris, where sources say he also worked in graphic art. He was a founder member of the Society of Contemporary Artists.

Das is best known for his Horse and Bull series, including charcoal drawings of horses in motion. Sources describe a spare, expressive style, and note that his passion for bulls grew from time spent in Spain. He also explored relations between men and women. He exhibited widely, including at the Sao Paulo Biennale in 1989, and received the Padma Shri in 2014. He died in Kolkata in 2015.

A life, dated

AB / TIMELINE

  1. 1939

    Born in Calcutta.

  2. 1955

    Joined the Government College of Art and Craft in Calcutta.

  3. 1989

    Took part in the 20th Sao Paulo Biennale and the Havana Biennale.

  4. 2000

    Held a solo exhibition at Art Heritage, New Delhi.

  5. 2003

    Had a retrospective covering 1957 to 2003 at ITC Sonar Bangla, Kolkata.

  6. 2014

    Received the Padma Shri.

  7. 2015

    Died in Kolkata at the age of 76.

Held in public collections

AB / COLLECTIONS

  • National Gallery of Modern Art, New Delhi
  • Glenbarra Art Museum, Japan
  • Ludwig Museum, Germany

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Works from the house

AB / WORKS

Sanjeev Sonpimpare, Embrace beneath the banyan: a square painting of two blue figures in an embrace in front of a banyan with hanging roots, high-rise towers and low rooftops.

Figures & portraits

Embrace beneath the banyan

Sanjeev Sonpimpare. Two figures, one in deep ultramarine and one in pale cornflower, hold each other in the foreground, their forms cut from flat colour with scratches of red showing through.

A square painting: a large vermilion half face in profile with a green eye, ringed by seated green and yellow deities, with a winged cow leaping over a brown and green chequerboard.

Devotional & narrative

Vermilion face with Kamadhenu

Ramesh Gorjala. A large vermilion half face in profile, with a single green eye, anchors this square canvas.

A square Kalamkari style painting: a saffron yellow face in profile with a gold nose ring, a crimson lotus panel at the right, and Maa Lakshmi Ji seated on a lotus inside the contour within a patterned sari border.

Devotional & narrative

Lakshmi on the lotus, saffron profile

Ramesh Gorjala. A saffron face in profile, a gold ring at the nostril, sets the key of the canvas.

Chandra Morkonda, The golden tree and the white bull: a tall painting of a great tree with blue-and-gold leaves rising from a golden trunk and tangled roots, with a white lotus bank at the left, a white bull at the right and a crescent moon on a vermilion ground.

Landscape, nature & trees

The golden tree and the white bull

Chandra Morkonda. A great tree stands against a vermilion ground, its leaves shaped in blue and veined in gold, each a small tree in itself, set over a field of ringed and patterned colour.

All works Abstract Figures Devotional Landscape Ravi Varma Press stones