Didi to raise party funds by selling her paintings | Kolkata - Hindustan Times
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Didi to raise party funds by selling her paintings

Hindustan Times | By, Kolkata
Mar 27, 2011 12:33 AM IST

Want to hang an original Mamata Banerjee painting on your drawing room wall? Come April 3 and the canvasses of the chief minister-in-waiting of Bengal would be up for grabs for the public as well as art lovers.

Want to hang an original Mamata Banerjee painting on your drawing room wall? Come April 3 and the canvasses of the chief minister-in-waiting of Bengal would be up for grabs for the public as well as art lovers.

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About 100 paintings of oil on canvass would be on display at an exhibition next week in Kolkata.

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The Trinamool Congress chief has planned to sell her paintings to raise funds for the party and for the victims of Nandigram.

With barely three weeks away from the first phase of polls on April 18, this exhibition organised by the Trinamool mouthpiece 'Jago Bangla' has assumed new significance.

The party has also decided to highlight the exhibits through its website for buyers who may not be located outside the city. "During the exhibition the paintings will be highlighted on the official website," said Avishek Banerjee, member of the Trinamool cyber team.

"We are organising exhibitions across the city. She has done a great job on the canvass. Now everyone will have a chance to hang them in their drawing room," said a senior party leader. Previously, some of the paintings were sold with the proceeds going to the victims of Nandigram.

According to Trinamool sources, Mamata Banerjee has selected her own canvasses to put them on display.

The Trinamool chief had earlier held exhibitions in 2005 and 2007 too.

Her first painting exhibition, held in Swabhumi - a popular hangout zone of north east Kolkata, was titled 'Twenty five hours in a day' and was designed to highlight Mamata's overarching penchant for painting despite her hectic schedule.

In 2007, after the Nandigram killings, she held another exhibition where 30 paintings were sold to raise Rs 15 lakh. This exhibition was organised by painter Suvaprasanna, who turned into one of her ardent admirers.

The April exhibition is supposed to attract big wigs of Kolkata's art world, given that the Trinamool chief is widely reckoned to be so close to the epicentre of power in Bengal after 34 years of continuous Left rule.

"It is more like a hobby to her. The paintings are stored in her Kalighat residence and party headquarters in Trinamool Bhawan," said a close confidante of Mamata Banerjee.

Mamata has herself designed the Trinamool party symbol of two blooming flowers on a bed of grass. In 2003, she moved on to crayons and water colours and later to oils on canvasses.

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