Sailoz Mookherjea

Acquired directly from the artist in Calcutta circa 1930s
Private Collection
Thence by descent 

Considered to be one of India’s most influential modernist painters, Sailoz Mookherjea was posthumously declared a National Art Treasure by the Indian government in the 1970s. His formative years as an artist were spent at the Government College of Arts in Calcutta under the tutelage of stalwarts like Abanindranath Tagore. The artist later moved to Delhi, seeing the new urban center as uncharted territory, at a time when modernism was gaining ground in Bengal. While interested in European modernism, Mookherjea developed a style of painting that was resolutely his own, largely inspired by his Indian context and the art historical heritage of the Subcontinent.