In all forms, ordinary or extraordinary, I seek the life rhythm (pranachanda) of the reality whose vitality has generated  the whole world and all its forms, actual and imaginary, and pulsates within them.
Nandalal Bose

Your paint-brush colors India’s heart,
And fills Bengal`s treasury with new riches.
Rabindranath Tagore, 1914

At a time when India’s artistic traditions had been largely lost after years of British colonial rule, one artist, Nandalal Bose made a unique contribution through art and education towards the cultural regeneration and independence of the nation.

Unmistakably Nandalal Bose occupies the central position within development of modern art sphere. Nandalal merits attention as the prime exponent of modernist values and certainly, it is possible to trace the unique strain of modern Indian art – directly through him. The paintings and graphic works of Nandalal Bose are filled with intense beauty and endless invention. Remarkable as works of art, they also reflect the trajectory of modern Indian cultural development. The varied range of expressions within his creations reveal his innate skills more clearly than any other medium. His endless inventions were motivated by the ideal of reviving classical Indian culture. Remarkably, Nandalal’s oeuvre is not as neatly divided into demarcated phases like those of established western artists such as Picasso. He moved from one mode to another, from Classical Indian to Mughal and Rajput Miniature, to Folk art and many of other art forms he had mastered, with élan.

Yet, instead of jumping from one style and topic to another, he probed deep into the subject matter, mastering the principles of each of the modes he had worked with.

Nandalal was the first among modern artists of India to return to and effectively revitalized the wall painting tradition that for millennia had been the mainstay of historical Indian painters. He as a teacher also emphasized the importance of becoming closely familiar with ancient Indian forms of art.

For good reasons, the Master Artist is considered as the Father of Modern Art in India. Equally important is the fact that he stood as one of the last essentially traditional Indian painters. By serving both, as a painter who worked and as a teacher of Indian Modern and Contemporary art, he effectively rejuvenated his country’s art form and liberated classical Indian form from the clutches of colonial rule and indeed contributed to the freedom of India.

Nandalal Bose, popularly known as the Master Moshai, was born on December 3rd, 1882 in Kharagpur, Monghyr District, Bihar. A disciple of Abanindranath Tagore, he graduated from Government School of Art, Calcutta in 1910. Nandalal was fascinated by the potential of folk art and indigenous modes of expression and inculcated them in his works although stylising them in a unique representation for depiction and narration of local life. His explorative temperament with artistic materials allowed him to create a vast body of work with printmaking techniques such as lithography, linoleum prints and Sino-Japanese techniques while remaining faithful to his narrative subject: India's environment and its ethos. Nandalal Bose's art conjures newness unbound, yet it is flushed with the memories of yesterday. Inspired by Far Eastern sensibilities that celebrate the traditional, the genius of his art lies in the interplay of sensual silhouettes and his powerful rendering of contemporary themes with the traditions, customs and sensibilities of Indian heritage. It is this intermingling that invigorates his works and captures the minds of his viewers. He began his artistic career in the fervour of the Swadeshi movement, rejecting western colonial norms of art and taking inspiration from the ancient murals of Ajanta and Bagh caves as well as Mughal miniatures. In 1919, Nandalal Bose accepted Rabindranath Tagore's invitation to become the Principal of the newly established art school Kala Bhavan at Visvabharati University in Santiniketan. He travelled in and out of India including places like Burma, China, Japan, Malaysia, Java and Sri Lanka seeking artistic stimulus from observing different cultural traditions. He also painted a series of posters for the Indian National Congress at Haripura in February 1938. The range of Nandalal's artistic expression is seen in his various landscapes with human figures, his varied images of nature and the Santiniketan Murals. His works reflect the changing landscape, portraying people and places at a time when modern India's cultural development was at its threshold. Nandalal Bose died on April 16th, 1966 in Santiniketan, West Bengal. He won several accolades including the Padma Vibhushan by the President of India in 1953. He was awarded with an honorary Doctorate in Letters (D. Litt.) from Banaras Hindu University in 1950 and Calcutta University in 1957. The NGMA has over 6800 of his works in its collection.