PROVENANCE : Property of a renowned Collector based in Delhi
SIGNATURE DETAILS : Signed in English Lower Right Recto/ L.R

Nandalal Bose, born in Bihar in 1882, was one of India's premier painters of the twentieth century, strongly affiliated with the Bengal School. He was one of the few who attempted to revitalize Indian art by grounding it in Indian culture, rejecting the dominant Western academic approach to painting at the time. In 1905, he studied under Abanindranath Tagore at the Calcutta School of Art and formed a lifelong connection with him. Later, Abanindranath asked him to work at Jorasanko, where he met A K Coomaraswamy, Rabindranath Tagore, and Count Okakura.

Nandalal Bose, a master draftsman, went beyond the economic potential of media such as linocuts, woodcuts, drypoint, etching, wash techniques, and lithography. His strong association with the Bengal School inspired him to investigate Far Eastern art styles, which he used to resonate with an Indian ethos. His art's extraordinary serenity and essential directness came from a mix of traditional formal techniques with vivid rural subject matter and ideas borrowed from rural India.His interest in creating figures is seen in these works. The shapes of the form and their relationship to the picture's structure, the use of color whose importance is local, and his primary preoccupation. The picture's background is an even, impenetrable space— a consistent color scheme. The handling of space is a recurring theme in his inventive figure compositions seen through both the artworks of different mediums. The artist's interaction with tradition is more of a re-interpretation and re-invention to fit his inner sensibilities than a reproduction. His artistic legacy is established by instilling the importance of tradition and effectively tempering it with rootedness in his times. He is one of the most genuine responses of an Indian Artist to his surroundings.

TO MENTION - National Art Treasure, Non Exportable