Shipra Bhattacharya (born 1954) is an Indian artist from

Kolkata Kolkata, also known as Calcutta ( its official name until 2001), is the capital and largest city of the Indian state of West Bengal. It lies on the eastern bank of the Hooghly River, west of the border with Bangladesh. It is the primary ...

, known for her figurative paintings of women in domestic, urban, and natural environments. Her work has been exhibited in India and internationally.

Life

Bhattacharya was born in Kolkata and earned a bachelor's degree in science from

Calcutta University The University of Calcutta, informally known as Calcutta University (), is a Public university, public State university (India), state university located in Kolkata, Calcutta (Kolkata), West Bengal, India. It has 151 affiliated undergraduate c ...

, before studying art at the

Government College of Art and Craft The Government College of Art & Craft (GCAC) in Kolkata is one of the oldest Art colleges in India. It was founded on August 16, 1854 at Garanhata, Chitpur, "with the purpose of establishing an institution for teaching the youth of all classe ...

in Kolkata. She continued her graduate education in art at the College of Visual Arts in Calcutta University, under the guidance of the artist

Subhaprasanna Subhaprasanna Bhattacharjee is an Indian artist, born in Kolkata in 1947. He graduated from the Indian College of Arts ( Rabindra Bharati University, Kolkata) in 1969. He was an active member of the Calcutta Painters group. He married to arti ...

, later marrying him.

Career and work

Bhattacharya began exhibiting her work in 1981. Her work has since been exhibited in India, including at the Habitat Center in Delhi, the Tagore Art Gallery in Kolkata, and the Birla Academy of Art & Culture. Internationally, her work has been widely exhibited individually and in groups. Bhattacharya's early work used Indian techniques of charcoal and

tempera Tempera (), also known as egg tempera, is a permanent, fast-drying painting medium consisting of pigments mixed with a water-soluble binder medium, usually glutinous material such as egg yolk. ''Tempera'' also refers to the paintings done in ...

, focusing on themes relating to women in public life, and particularly, the colors and images of Bengali markets. Her later work is primarily in oil on canvas, drawing from historical and mythical themes. Describing Bhattacharya's work, South Asian art historian Marcella Sirhandi writes that she draws inspiration from the traditions of Indian miniature paintings, drawing from contemporary middle-class lived experiences of women. Art critic and author Manasi Majumdar has praised Bhattacharya's depiction of femininity in "...images of celebration and fulfillment," particularly noting her focus on the internal lives of her subjects. In 2006, commenting on an exhibition of Bhattacharya's works in Palo Alto, California, curator Sushma Bahl wrote that her work was "...quiet, content and non-provocative," depicting women at ease and independent of the

male gaze In feminist theory, the male gaze is the act of depicting women and the world in the visual arts and in literature from a masculine, heterosexual perspective that presents and represents women as sexual objects for the pleasure of the heterosex ...

. Her art has also been used in book covers, including on an edition of

Bani Basu Bani Basu (born 11 March 1939 ) is a prolific Bengali Indian author, essayist, critic, poet, translator and professor. Life She received her formal education from the well-known Lady Brabourne College, Scottish Church College and at the Univ ...

's ''Dark Afternoons'' and a volume of poetry by Jibananda Das. In recent publications, Bhattacharya's work has been described as under-appreciated, with Tanya and Carol Goyal noting in ''Business World'' that Bhattacharya and other women artists were not included in sales rankings of Indian artists despite national fame, because of a lack of global attention to their work, and stating, "Shipra Bhattacharya currently sells at prices well below her talent. Buy now, reap later." Along with her husband,

, Bhattacharya has also established the Arts Acre, a museum for modern art from the state of

West Bengal West Bengal (; Bengali language, Bengali: , , abbr. WB) is a States and union territories of India, state in the East India, eastern portion of India. It is situated along the Bay of Bengal, along with a population of over 91 million inhabi ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bhattacharya, Shipra 1954 births Artists from Kolkata University of Calcutta alumni Artists from West Bengal Women artists from West Bengal Living people Indian women painters