PROVENANCE : From a Delhi Based Art Gallery

Despite his training in Company School art, traditional Kalighat pats, and Ajanta cave paintings, Lalu Prasad Shaw established his own style in watercolors and prints. He worked with the two-dimensional, geometric, and non-figurative, as visible in his lithographs, after learning from instructors as diverse as Gopal Ghosh, Rathin Maitra, and Maniklal Banerjee. In the 1970s, he mastered the graphics genre – pioneered by the Society of Contemporary Artists – by expressing it in abstract form.

Shaw's painting was intensely focused on both abstraction and figuration. He became interested in printing at the age of 32, swiftly mastered the field of graphic arts, and built a reputation for himself as a printer in Indian contemporary art. This interest in printmaking began in 1967, when he joined the 'Society of Contemporary Artists,' where artist Sanat Kar exposed him to graphic prints and Suhas Roy, who had returned from Paris, taught Shaw etching methods. He was also motivated by a graphic print exhibition from Czechoslovakia that had arrived in Calcutta. This exhibition influenced his usage of black and white in a dramatic and aggressive manner. Shaw began experimenting with shape, tone, texture, and depth in his work with geometric forms.

He worked consistently in etching and lithography and, with the help of Somenath Hore, redesigned the printing department at Kala Bhavan. Shaw claimed that the calligraphic components in his lithography work were a direct outcome of the atmosphere of Kala Bhavana and the general interest in Far-East art at Santiniketan. As part of Shaw's voyage, etching and lithography improved not only Bengal's, but the entire nation's printing scenario. Thus, Shaw continued to print alongside numerous techniques of painting, experimenting in both abstraction and figuration, and fully believing in the 'journey' of seeking new methods to express the picture.