Ganesh Pyne

Born in 1937 in Kolkata, Ganesh Pyne studied at the Government College of Art and Craft, Kolkata. Ganesh Pyne’s works are a manifestation of his deep and rather intense engagement with the nature of existence, an engagement that takes him into the innermost recesses of his imagination and consciousness. The foremost exponent of the Bengal School of Art, Pyne has blended romanticism, fantasy and an inventive play of light and dark, within the labyrinths of the subconscious, in his works. His signature style was shaped from his own experiences of solitude, alienation, pain and horror as well as moods of tenderness and serenity that sometimes arose in his work.

Ganesh Pyne participated in several solo shows, 1990 Exhibition of Illustrations for book on Wajid Ali Shah, Galerie 88, Kolkata; 1994 ‘Sketches’, The Village Gallery, New Delhi; 1998 ‘Ganesh Pyne : A Retrospective 1952-1998’, Centre for International Modern Art (CIMA), Kolkata; 2000 Exhibition of Drawings on Mahabharata 1967 to 1987at National Gallery of Modern Art (NGMA), Mumbai; 2006 'An Enchanted Space: The Private World of Ganesh Pyne', Centre of International Modern Art (CIMA), Kolkata; and 2010 'His Mahabharta', Centre of International Modern Art (CIMA), Kolkata , to name a few.

He received many accolades in his lifetime, including the Raja Ravi Varma Award from the Kerala Government in 2011, a Lifetime Achievement Award, Star Ananda, Kolkata, in 2008, the Abainindra Puraskar, Government of West Bengal, in 2004, and the Gagan Abani Puraskar, Visva Bharati, in 1997.

He established himself as one of the most notable contemporary artists of Bengal School of Art whose dark imageries got him an international fame until he passed away from a heart attack on March 2013.