Dhiraj Choudhury

Dhiraj Choudhury was one of the most prominent and influential painters of modern India. He was born in 1936 in Brahmanbaria District, which was then part of British India and now belongs to Bangladesh. He witnessed the political violence and turmoil of the Partition of India and the Bengal famine, which shaped his artistic vision and social consciousness. He took up painting as a budding artist from his childhood and studied at the Government College of Art & Craft in Kolkata. He moved to Delhi in 1960 and joined the College of Art as a teacher, where he remained until his retirement in 1996. He was also a visiting professor at several universities in India and abroad. He referred to himself as an "aggressive painter" of "life full of misery" and often expressed his protests against the dowry system, corruption, social inequalities, war and environmental degradation through his paintings. He used various mediums like oils, acrylics, water-colours, charcoal and collage to create his distinctive style of painting. He also experimented with different forms of art like murals, sculptures, ceramics and installations. He was inspired by various sources like folk art, tribal art, classical art, modern art and literature. He was also influenced by eminent personalities like Rabindranath Tagore, Mahatma Gandhi, Pablo Picasso and Salvador Dali. He had more than eighty exhibitions in India and abroad, including sixteen international painting exhibitions. Some of his notable exhibitions were held at the Lalit Kala Akademi in Delhi, the Birla Academy of Art & Culture in Kolkata, the National Gallery of Modern Art in Mumbai, the Nehru Centre in London, the UNESCO House in Paris, the Museum of Modern Art in Moscow and the National Museum of Fine Arts in Havana. He also participated in several biennales and festivals like the Asian Art Biennale in Dhaka, the Triennale India in Delhi, the Festival of India in Moscow and the Havana Biennial in Cuba. He received many awards and honors for his artistic achievements, including the Padma Shri in 1997, the National Award in 1972 and 1975, the Lalit Kala Akademi Award in 1973 and 1986, the AIFACS Award in 1984 and 1989, the Birla Academy Award in 1985 and 1991, the Shiromani Kala Puraskar in 1992 and the Lifetime Achievement Award by All India Fine Arts & Crafts Society (AIFACS) in 2011. He was also conferred with honorary doctorates by several universities like Rabindra Bharati University, Burdwan University and Visva-Bharati University. He was a member of various committees and organizations related to art and culture, such as the Lalit Kala Akademi, the Sahitya Kala Parishad, the National Gallery of Modern Art and the Indian Council for Cultural Relations. He was also involved in various humanitarian projects like painting for peace, promoting literacy, supporting environmental causes and helping underprivileged children. He died on 1 June 2018 at the age of 81 due to cardiac arrest. His paintings are widely exhibited and collected in India and abroad. He is regarded as one of the leading modern Indian painters and a key figure in contemporary Indian art.