Jahar Dasgupta

Jahar Dasgupta
Jahar Dasgupta
	Jahar Dasgupta in 2014
Born	Jahar Lal Dasgupta; 31 May 1942 (age 82); Jamshedpur, British India
Nationality	Indian
Education	Kala Bhavana, Santiniketan
Occupation(s)	Painter, sculptor, social activist, teacher
Years active	1969–present
Known for	Painting
Awards	Paricharan Sarkar Memorial Award

Jahar Dasgupta (born May 31, 1942) is a contemporary painter from India.^[1] He was born in Jamshedpur, British India.

Early life and education

Jahar Dasgupta's childhood was spent in Jamshedpur where at the young age, he would draw elephants, dogs, and trees on the floor. Later, his family moved to Dhanbad due to his father, Mr. Narendranath Dasgupta, who worked at TISCO in an executive post. He left the job to join the Central Institute of Mining and Fuel Research institute as a scientist.

At the age of 9, he drew the face of Joseph Stalin and Ma Sarada Devi on a wall. This took the attention of his parents, and as a result, they decided to send him to an art school. In 1960, he was admitted to Visva-Bharati University at Santiniketan, which was founded by Rabindranath Tagore. This was a substantial turning point in his life. In Kala Bhavana, he took his primary lessons under mentors like Nand Lal Bose, Ramkinkar Baij and Benode Behari Mukherjee. In 1964, he obtained a diploma from Kala Bhavana.

His first job was as an art teacher at a non-Bengali school in North Calcutta where he served for many years. In his struggling time, he also took many art tuitions to support his family. Simultaneously, he continued to regularly participate in art shows.

Career

Dasgupta had developed his individual style in his paintings and drawings. Previously, he had painted in oil medium and now mainly works in ink, pastel, and acrylic color.

His first solo exhibition was organized in Birla Academy. His other solo exhibitions took place in Laxman Art Gallery, Lalit Kala Academy, Chitrakoot, and the Academy of Fine Arts, Calcutta. He exhibited his first solo abroad in 2004 at Gallery Hansmania (Norway) and later at Club Bangladesh (Sweden). Dasgupta also participated in many group exhibitions throughout India and abroad, such as Aakriti Art Gallery, Birla Academy, Academy of Fine Arts, Calcutta, Jehangir Art Gallery, AIFACS, Kamalnayan Bajaj Art Gallery, India Habitat Centre, Nehru Centre, Lokayata Art Gallery, Chemould Art Gallery, Mulk Raj Anand Centre and various other places. His paintings were exhibited in South Korea, London, Paris and Canada. He was invited to NABC in 2010, hosted by Kallol, a non-profit socio-cultural organization of Bengalis, New Jersey. After that, his last solo exhibition was organised by Tagore Society at the 60,000 square metres (6.0 ha) performing arts center located in Marina Bay, Singapore, popularly known as Esplanade - Theatres on the Bay in the year 2011.

1969–1971

In 1969, a total of seven ex-students from Jahar and Baroda Art College, Santiniketan, came together to form a group named Painters' Orchestra, now one of the oldest art groups in India. Since that time, Jahar Dasgupta became a regular participant of this group and their shows, and also went for a few solos as well. His first solo exhibition was organized in Birla Art and Culture Kolkata, West Bengal. He developed his own style of expression since the beginning of 1970s after passing through a period of apprenticeship during the 1960s. In this sense, he may be categorized as an artist of the 1970s.

1971–1980

Starting in the late 1960s and ending in the early 1970s, there was a period of political turmoil. The leftist movement in the fold of CPI(ML) rose to its peak, ushering in deaths and murders at a devastating measure. The Bangladesh liberation war of 1971 also created great commotion. All creative persons were, in some way or another, affected by these incidents. All these social upheavals had a great impact on Jahar's creative self. In this early phase, his paintings often revealed reality in its crudest form. An acrylic canvas of 1994 titled 'Scrap' shows clusters of dilapidated human bodies tied together on a crate being pulled up by a crane.

1981–1999

Jahar never tried to hang onto one fixed subject. He experimented with various subjects and styles in different forms and respective times. On one side, 'End of an Era', 'Genocide', 'Waiting for Godot', 'Dark side of Civilization', Series of 'Confrontation', and 'Shelter' are the reflection of anger and crude rebellion. On the other side, through 'Mermaid' series, 'Fall of Radhika' series, 'Eternal Love' series, he touched the chord of beauty ingrained in life. His paintings at that time swung between the two aspects of this duality, ideal and real, good and evil, light and dark.

Rotary Club of Madhyamgram recognized by (Rotary International) facilitated him with Lifetime Achievement Award in Fine Arts in the year 2000.

2000–2009

In this era, Jahar mainly concentrated on nature, animals, and women in his canvases. The drawings were mostly done in monochrome dry pastel. The canvases in acrylic focused on the various aspects of ideal beauty. The widespread nature of rural Bengal reveals its colorful faces. The natural is transformed into the supernatural. These paintings are narrated as full of life, love, spirit, joy, and fantasy.

Sandip Ray, a young film director from Bengal who filmed Himghar in 1996, met Dasgupta and showed interest for a documentary on the artist. Later, in 2001, he completed the documentary which he called 'Bornomoy Jahar' and screened it at Nandan.

2010–present

While attending a talk entitled 'Nadir Bhabna' (Musings of the river) by Shri Alokeranjan Dasgupta, the artist Shri Jahar Dasgupta encountered a mind-blowing experience. Acknowledged gratefully by the painter, the interaction opened for him the doors to the world of Bergson and his revolutionary thinking.

This was his very first acquaintance with the philosophy of the French thinker and evolutionist Henri Bergson (1894–1941). The uplifting spiritual content of Bergson enkindled the thought process of the artist. All the present series and solos is a living tale of the journey. In fact he is the first artist to apply the theory of Bergson into fine art. This is a very rare and unconventional thinking by Jahar where he blends the science and art beautifully into his canvas.

Shri Dasgupta's creative impulse is enthused by this Aristollean 'entelechy' – the endowment that gives rise to the potential of the vital force. This by itself becomes the primary movement of the artist's imagination. In his depiction of the teeming world of the humans, the birds and beasts and the minutest of insects, he does not change the outward form. The artist in him understands that every moment is changing and leaving the imprint of its transience on the inner mechanism of the body. There by it creates an abstract form within which in its turn is represented with a candid intensity of the artist.

Dasgupta at MGKV Mahatma Gandhi Kashi Vidyapeeth University

Dasgupta's recent work on the 'Jesus Christ' series and a huge mural on MADHABI daughter of yayati from Mahabharata is also a notable work from recent times.

Politics

In the 1970s, like many people from art and cultural field in West Bengal, Jahar was among those who attracted to leftist ideologies and was immediately attached to Gananatya Sangha. He stood twice on the Panchayet vote under left wing parties at Madhyamgram North 24 Parganas in 1974 and 1984.

Jahar Dasgupta was the former President of the Academy of Fine Arts in Kolkata where he lives and works. As of now, he has a job as the principal of the Swarsangam-Birla Institute of Visual and Performing Arts.

References

^ "Stories of life - Express India". Archived from the original on 25 September 2012. Retrieved 21 May 2009.

External links

[1] "Stories of life - Express India". Archived from the original on 25 September 2012. Retrieved 21 May 2009.

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