Dedicated gallery to be set up for visually challenged master painter Benode Behari Mukherjee | Kolkata - Hindustan Times
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Dedicated gallery to be set up for visually challenged master painter Benode Behari Mukherjee

Hindustan Times | By, Kolkata
Dec 30, 2017 11:23 AM IST

It will be set up in the Santiniketan residence of painter K G Subramanyan. Visva-Bharati was recently handed over more than 500 artworks of Mukherjee.

Just about a century after Benode Behari Mukherjee (1904-1980) enrolled as a first batch student of Kala Bhavan in Visva-Bharati (VB), Santiniketan, the central university founded by Rabindranath Tagore received an oeuvre of more than 500 artworks by possibly the only visually challenged modern master painter-muralist.

The master painter at work as captured by Satyajit Ray in his documentary ‘The Inner Eye’.(Screenshots from ‘The Inner Eye’)
The master painter at work as captured by Satyajit Ray in his documentary ‘The Inner Eye’.(Screenshots from ‘The Inner Eye’)

It can pave the way for the first full-fledged gallery of the artist who did not have vision in one eye and had severe myopic vision from birth. He went completely blind in his fifties following an unsuccessful cataract surgery.

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Mukherjee’s life was so inspiring that Satyajit Ray shot a documentary film ‘The Inner Eye’ on him in 1972 eight years before he passed away.

The gallery will be set up at the Santiniketan residence of eminent painter K G Subramanyan (1924-2916), who donated the house for setting up a permanent archive on Mukherjee. The collection will initially find its place there, until two new galleries dedicated to Mukherjee and Subramanyan are constructed on the campus of Kala Bhavan, the art school of VB.

“This is the largest collection of the artist’s works. No research work on him will be complete without experiencing this collection,” said art historian Raman Siva Kumar, an expert on the Bengal school of art and former principal, Kala Bhavan, the fine arts department of VB. “The most important of his works are in this collection.”

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“We feel honoured to receive this collection. Benode Behari was not only a first batch student, but also a teacher. We’ll initially open a gallery at Subramanyan’s residence and this will possibly happen before 2019, when Kala Bhavan completes 100 years,” said Swapan Kumar Dutta, acting vice-chancellor of VB.

When 15-year-old Mukherjee first came to Santiniketan for admission in Kala Bhavan in 1919, he was already suffering from very poor vision. Nandalal Bose, the legendary artist and first principal of Kala Bhavan, who joined a year later, was initially apprehensive of continuing with Mukherjee in the class. It was Tagore himself, who encouraged Bose to retain Mukherjee.

According to Ray’s own narration in his documentary, “There was no doubt that a painter of striking originality had arrived in the Indian scene. A painter with a deeply introspective, analytical turn of mind, aware of traditions, responsive to nature and sympathies extending beyond the limits of oriental art.”

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The collection of Mukherjee that Kala Bhavan received belong to the artist’s daughter, Mrinalini, herself a renowned sculptor. Following her death in February 2017, the Mrinalini Mukherjee Foundation took up the charge of fulfilling the daughter’s dreams.

Siva Kumar, who is also a member of Mrinalini Mukherjee Foundation, told HT, “She passed through phases of financial stress but never sold any of his father’s works. She always wanted his father’s works to be in Santiniketan, because Mukherjee always considered Santiniketan as the most important factor in his life.”

The collection include two scrolls - one of them depicting the landscape of Khowai area in Santiniketan was featured in Ray’s documentary - one Chinese sketchbook with landscape of Santiniketan captured in each pages, drawings in Nepal and paper cuttings he made after losing vision completely. The scrolls and the sketchbook were his marriage anniversary gifts to his wife, Leela, herself an artist.

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There are also studies/ sketches that he made while creating the iconic murals on the walls of Hindi Bhavan, China Bhavan and the one on the ceiling of Kala Bhavan.

The trust has also proposed to VB authorities to assist with funds for setting up a permanent gallery. “We’ll raise the money through sales of some of the works by his daughter and wife. It will be used to assist VB authorities in setting up the gallery,” Siva Kumar said.

The trust has another set of Mukherjee’s works - about two dozen - which they plan to handover to National Gallery of Modern Art in New Delhi, mostly because it has significant collections of the works of two other masters from Santiniketan - Nandalal Bose and sculptor Ramkinkar Baij.

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  • ABOUT THE AUTHOR
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    Snigdhendu Bhattacharya, principal correspondent, Hindustan Times, Kolkata, has been covering politics, socio-economic and cultural affairs for over 10 years. He takes special interest in monitoring developments related to Maoist insurgency and religious extremism.

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