Chittaprosad Bhattacharya (1915-1978) was an Indian political artist of the mid-20th century. He preferred watercolor and printmaking, avoiding oil on canvas.

Early life

Born in 1915 in

Naihati Naihati is a city and a municipality of North 24 Parganas district in the Indian state of West Bengal. It is a part of the area covered by Kolkata Metropolitan Development Authority (KMDA). Naihati Municipality is one of the oldest in the whol ...

in present-day

North 24 Parganas District North 24 Parganas (abv. 24 PGS (N)) or sometimes North Twenty Four Parganas is a district in southern West Bengal, of eastern India. North 24 Parganas extends in the tropical zone from latitude 22° 11′ 6″ north to 23° 15′ 2″ north and f ...

West Bengal West Bengal (, Bengali: ''Poshchim Bongo'', , abbr. WB) is a state in the eastern portion of India. It is situated along the Bay of Bengal, along with a population of over 91 million inhabitants within an area of . West Bengal is the fourt ...

, Chittaprosad became radicalized as a student of the Chittagong Government College in the mid-1930s. He joined the grassroots movement to resist both colonial oppression by the British, and also the feudal oppression of the landed Indian gentry. Chittaprosad rejected the classicism of the

Bengal School The Bengal School of Art, commonly referred as Bengal School, was an art movement and a style of Indian painting that originated in Bengal, primarily Kolkata and Shantiniketan, and flourished throughout the Indian subcontinent, during the Britis ...

and its spiritual preoccupations.''Manifestations II'', Roobina Karode, Delhi Art Gallery 2004, Due to his refusal to accept the discriminations of the

caste system Caste is a form of social stratification characterised by endogamy, hereditary transmission of a style of life which often includes an occupation, ritual status in a hierarchy, and customary social interaction and exclusion based on cultura ...

, Chittaprosad never used his Brahminical surname during his life.''Manifestations I'', Santo Datta, Delhi Art Gallery, 2003, New Delhi He wrote articles and produced incisive cartoons and illustrations that displayed a natural talent for draughtsmanship.

Career and style

Chittraprosad’s most creative years began in the 1930s. He satirized and sharply criticized the

feudal Feudalism, also known as the feudal system, was the combination of the legal, economic, military, cultural and political customs that flourished in Middle Ages, medieval Europe between the 9th and 15th centuries. Broadly defined, it was a wa ...

and colonial systems in quickly drawn but masterful pen and ink sketches. As an artist, and reformer, Chittaprosad was also proficient at creating linocuts and woodcuts with obvious propagandistic intent. Since these cheaply made prints were created for the masses, rather than the art gallery, they were seldom signed or numbered. With time, they took on commercial value as art, and today are prized by collectors.Collection of Indian Printmaking
www.waswoxwaswoartcollection.blogspot.com
/ref> During World War II in 1943, Chittaprosad covered the Bengal Famine and used his art to expose it in various leftist nationalist media in the form of art, illustrating humans suffering from hunger that he had witnessed while traveling around that part of India. This resulted in his first publication, ''Hungry Bengal''. It was a sharply provocative attack on the political and social powers of the time. The British authorities suppressed it nearly immediately, impounding and destroying large copies of ''Hungry Bengal''.''Manifestations III'', Geeta Doctor, Delhi Art Gallery, 2005, Chittaprosad settled more permanently in Bombay from 1946 onward. The transformations that the

Communist Party A communist party is a political party that seeks to realize the socio-economic goals of communism. The term ''communist party'' was popularized by the title of ''The Manifesto of the Communist Party'' (1848) by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. A ...

took between 1948 and 1949, caused the artist to disassociate himself from communism, though he continued to pursue political themes in his art to the end of his life. In the years before his death, Chittaprosad devoted more and more time to the

world peace movement In its most general sense, the term "world" refers to the totality of entities, to the whole of reality or to everything that is. The nature of the world has been conceptualized differently in different fields. Some conceptions see the worl ...

, and various efforts to help impoverished children. He is represented in the

National Museum A national museum is a museum maintained and funded by a national government. In many countries it denotes a museum run by the central government, while other museums are run by regional or local governments. In other countries a much greater numb ...

in Prague, The

National Gallery of Modern Art National may refer to: Common uses * Nation or country ** Nationality – a ''national'' is a person who is subject to a nation, regardless of whether the person has full rights as a citizen Places in the United States * National, Maryland, ce ...

in New Delhi, Osians Art Archive in Mumbai, and the Jane and Kito de Boer Collection in Dubai.

References

External links

Profile on Google Arts & Culture
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bhattacharya, Chittaprosad 1915 births 1978 deaths People from North 24 Parganas district Bengali male artists Indian cartoonists Political artists