Photo: Collected
Eminent painter Jogen Chowdhury is no more. He died on Sunday morning at the private Ruby General Hospital in Kolkata. He was 87.
Family sources said he had been suffering from blood cancer for nearly 14 months. Despite several rounds of chemotherapy, his physical condition did not improve.
He was admitted to the hospital on EM Bypass on 16 October, the day of Shashthi during Durga Puja, with a severe urinary tract infection and symptoms of sepsis. When his condition deteriorated, he was put on ventilation; he died there while undergoing treatment.
His death has cast a pall of grief over the cultural world. Responding to questions from the media at Ramnagar in Medinipur that day, the state’s Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari expressed his condolences, saying, ‘He (Jogen Chowdhury) was an artist of great stature. The wealth and the creations he has left for the country and the nation will remain imperishable and immortal. I pay my respects to his departed soul. I pray for his immortality.’
The chief minister added, ‘From Rashtrapati Bhavan on Delhi’s Rajina Hills to many government buildings, he left his notable contributions. These will last for several hundred years.’
Former chief minister Mamata Banerjee wrote on her X handle, ‘Jogen Chowdhury was the pride of Bengal and India. He was a huge inspiration for artists around the world, and personally for me as well. I extend my condolences to his family, friends and all his admirers around the world.’
Jogen Chowdhury was elected a Rajya Sabha MP for the All India Trinamool Congress (AITC) as a representative of civil society from 2014 to 2020. In 2012, he was conferred the ‘Banga Bibhushan’ honour. His passing has left a void in the world of art and culture that cannot be filled.
He was born into a zamindar family on 16 February 1939 in Daharpara village in Faridpur, in undivided Bengal. His father, Pramathanath Chowdhury, was a zamindar, but it was his mother who sowed the seeds of art in Jogen’s mind. Watching the alpana his mother drew, he developed a deep attraction to drawing as a child.
During Partition, in 1948, the family left their ancestral home and moved to Kolkata. From 1951, Dhakuria in south Kolkata became their permanent address.
After graduating from the Government Art College, Kolkata, in 1960, he began his career as an art teacher at a school in Howrah. In 1962, he joined the Handloom Board in Kolkata as a designer; he later also worked as a textile designer in Madras.
In 1965, he travelled to Paris, the city of his dreams, on a French government scholarship to study art.
After returning home, he served with great distinction as curator of the art gallery at Rashtrapati Bhavan. He also taught for a long time at Kala Bhavana in Santiniketan.
Beyond art, Jogen Chowdhury also stepped into politics. Owing to his closeness to former chief minister Mamata Banerjee, he was elected a Rajya Sabha MP on a Trinamool Congress ticket in 2014.
Background
He also had ties with Bangladesh’s art scene. According to an Ittefaq report of 26 May 2022, a solo exhibition of his paintings was held that year at the Arcadia Arts Gallery in Banani, Dhaka; before that, in 2017, he received the ‘Zainul Honour’ from Dhaka University.
At a glance
According to Sarmaya, an Indian art archive, Jogen Chowdhury was appointed curator of the art gallery at Rashtrapati Bhavan in 1972, and joined Kala Bhavana in Santiniketan as a professor of painting in 1987.
In the archive’s description, his signature became the portrayal of social anguish through somewhat distorted human figures drawn in black lines alone.
Sources
Background sources: Ittefaq, 26 May 2022; Sarmaya
