An artist, to my mind, needs no introduction. No amount of writing can introduce him better than his own work. Not even Ananda Coomaraswamy rhetoric, for instance, can add to what the rhythm of the Nataraj bronze has to say. But still, “ The lord made critics as well artists ” as Coomaraswamy himself tells us, “and they feel bound to get justice done for the works that have touched them most : this necessity which they feel may be the means of creating beauty in their own work”. (letter to Sir William Rothensteine, December29, 1914 )

Sailoz Mookherjea is the most distinguished of the second generation of the Indian painters. The Studio has aptly described him as ‘one of India’s most mature painters’.

He was born in 1907 in a gifted family of Calcutta. After spending his boyhood in Burdwan, the then Bengal, he had his early general studies and later got his art education at The Government School of Art, Calcutta. Worked for Imperial Tobacco Company for a period and then he held his first one-man show in Calcutta in 1937. Soon he left for Europe with a view to acquainting himself with the latest developments in the art world. During the travel he met Matisse, attended Cezanne’s Centenary celebration (Paris), visited the exhibitions of Cezanne and Van Gogh (Paris), Rembrandt (Amsterdam), Tintoretto (Venice) and Franz Hals (Haarlem), besides visiting several other museums and galleries. He had also visited Egypt, Sikkim and Tibet. He held his second one-man show in Calcutta in the late thirties.

The verve and vitality running through his works soon evoked tremendous enthusiasm among eminent artist like Abanindranath Tagore, Ju Peon and Ye Chien Wu – the last had drawn a sketch of him which he treasured even to his last day. In May, 1951, he had exhibited “Confession” (Plate 31) and “Wind” (Plate 32) at the famous Paris exhibition, Salon De Mai in which about three hundred artists from twenty-one countries including masters like Picasso, Rouault and Leger participated.