Four Figures

A truly towering figure on the modern Indian art scene, artist Bhabesh Chandra Sanyal, better known as B.C. Sanyal was born in Dhubri, Assam and studied at the Government School of Art and Craft in Calcutta.

Over his long creative career, as a participant-observer of the colonial, through the Bengal School to the modernist - Sanyal created his own free and vibrant style. His watercolours and oils were rooted in honesty and his adoration for rural India. His themes revolve around economic deprivation and human struggles. A sculpture titled The Vertical Figure, where Sanyal portrays his mother is considered one of his most noted works.

He taught at Lahore's Mayo School of Arts in 1929, later set up the Lahore School of Fine Arts and founded India's first non-governmental body of artists, the Delhi Slipi Chakra, in 1949. After that, he took up the post of Dean at Delhi Polytechnic and as Secretary of the Lalit Kala Academy. Amongst his many achievements are the shows, awards, fellowships, including the Lalit Kala Akademy Fellowship for Lifetime Achievement in 1980 and the Padma Bhushan in 1984.

B.C. Sanyal, the painter, sculptor, teacher and art school administrator, inspired many of India's great modern artists, from Krishen Khanna to Satish Gujral and beyond.