Chintamoni Kar

Acquired from Gallery Steinruecke, Mumbai, circa 2000

One of India’s most celebrated sculptors, Chintamoni Kar was born in West Bengal in 1915. Kar’s artistic journey began as a painting student at Abanindranath Tagore’s Indian Society of Oriental Art. He went on to learn sculpture under Giridhari Mahapatra and Victor Giovanelli. In 1938, he moved to Paris and trained at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière to improve his sculpting technique before returning to India, where he taught sculpture at the University of Calcutta and Delhi Polytechnic. In 1946, Kar moved to London, marking the beginning of his 10-year European sojourn, during which he became a member of the Royal Society of British Sculptors. When he returned to West Bengal in 1956, he was appointed as the Principal of the Government College of Art & Craft, Calcutta. He received the Padma Bhushan, the third-highest civilian award in India in 1974.

Whist Kar is best known for his modernist sculpture that fused Indian sensibilities and new Western techniques, he was also a painter. His painted works signal a return to his cultural roots, in line with the post-Independence ethos to free oneself from the restraints of 19th-century Europeanism. With the traditional watercolor wash, highly detailed drapery and infilled forms, the current work appears akin to traditional Mughal miniature painting. This reflects the academic figurative style that Kar would have learned under Abanindranath Tagore, who aimed to modernize the Mughal style and counter Western artistic models. When comparing Kar’s sculptures and paintings, the defining focus of his artistic project is evident: the fluid elegance of the female form.