My memories, my dreams, my thoughts, my environment – they could all become subjects of my works: Jogen Chowdhury
There was the opportunity to see paintings, including the poignant ones of the younger sister he had lost. The large studio in his Santiniketan home has windows that open onto a garden abloom with seasonal flowers. Sunlight streams in, falling on the artist seated on the floor, his concentration focused on the shaura he is painting in bold strokes. He typically paints seated cross-legged on the ground, the physiognomy of the features occasionally drawing inspiration from popular Kalighat images, before veering away towards an iconography that is unmistakably and powerfully his own. The sensuous contours of the dramatis personae may have been dredged from the patua paintings popular in Birbhum and elsewhere in Bengal, or, by his own admission, sourced from cultural memories that reflect his personal association with the characters. The canvases balanced against the walls vary in mood. We see paintings ranging from early portraits of family members to those of couples caught in intimate moments. Looking back on that day, I remember how privileged one felt in the company of the two veteran painters and friends, listening to them exchange views on art and artistic practice, their philosophies, and their approaches to the roles of institutions. Both spoke of the violation of human dignity they were witnessing around them and of their determination to resist forces that threatened the fragile peace of the nation. Despite their quiet voices, it is their resolve that I recollect most vividly. There were other occasions to revisit Jogen’s studio afterwards, but it is that first visit that remains etched in memory.
Nandan Mela, the students’ art festival, is approaching on December 2, and Jogen Chowdhury is busy painting the clay platters he has promised his pupils. The year was 1998, and we were visiting Jogen’s studio, since Manjit Bawa had been invited by him, in his capacity as dean of faculty, Visva-Bharati, to exhibit his miniatures at Kala Bhavana. I was glad that, despite his many preoccupations, he had achieved that dream. (Ina Puri) Excerpted with permission from Portrait of an Artist (Photographs by Rohit Chawla, Text by Kishore Singh), published by Kiran Nadar Museum of Art and Mapin Publishing in February 2026.
Because that was what most authentically reflected his mood during those years, he spoke, too, of Partition, and of how his early works were predominantly black,.
Half-finished canvases from his Wound series mark a departure from earlier works, where the emphasis is on damages inflicted on the human body, the sutures and lacerations raw and horrific. In recent years, when we had occasion to meet at the Society of Visual Art and Design, the institution he built in Santiniketan, I reminded him that years earlier, during a visit to his studio, he had spoken of his desire to build such an art centre.
