Bikash Bhattacharjee

Bikash Bhattacharjee (1940-2006) graduated in 1963 with a Diploma in Fine Art from the Indian College of Art and Draftsmanship. He later taught at the same school from 1968 to 1972 and thereafter at the Government College of Art and Craft, Kolkata from 1973 to 1982. Bhattacharjee earned many accolades for his accomplishments in painting such as the Academy of Fine Art, Calcutta in 1962. In 1971,  he also received the national award from Lalit Kala Akademi. Most importantly, the state government conferred him with the Bangla Ratna in 1987 and the  Government of India honoured him with the Padma Shri in 1988.

Bhattacharjee is attributed for an utmost authenticity to Indian art when artists in India were inclining more towards abstraction and distortion. Realism was his strength and other than painting the city and its people that he knew so well, Bikash was also a skilled portrait painter. Portraying the exact nature of drapery or the complexion of a lady, he accomplished authority in catching the nature of light. He achieved an enigmatic quality in his canvases that put him aside among his peers and future generations of artists.

The subjects he picked included depictions of the female form and individuals of all works of life, like old, kids, domestic help, etc. He was able to create an authentic setting as a background to the characters to make it absolutely realistic. He had been profoundly impacted by the great artists and admitted that Salvador Dalí was his favourite!

In his Doll series, Bhattacharjee dramatized the savagery that unfolded in Kolkata right after the Naxalites event due to police brutality in the 1970s. In the series, Bhattacharjee composed an exploration of the city in a state of protests and unrest by a doll. Depicting the Hindu Goddess Durga as an ordinary, and struggling Bengali woman, Bhattacharjee practice was real and raw.