Ganga Devi (1928 – 21 January 1991) was an Indian painter, considered by many as one of the leading exponents of

Madhubani painting Mithila painting is a style of painting practiced in the Mithila region of India and Nepal. Artists create these paintings using a variety of mediums, including their own fingers, or twigs, brushes, nib-pens, and matchstick. The paint is crea ...

tradition. She is credited with popularizing the Madhubani painting outside India. She was born in 1928 in

Mithila Mithila may refer to: Places * Mithilā, a synonym for the ancient Videha state ** Mithilā (ancient city), the ancient capital city of Videha * Mithila (region), a cultural region (historical and contemporary), now divided between India and Nepal ...

in the Indian state of

Bihar Bihar (; ) is a state in eastern India. It is the 2nd largest state by population in 2019, 12th largest by area of , and 14th largest by GDP in 2021. Bihar borders Uttar Pradesh to its west, Nepal to the north, the northern part of West ...

in a Kayastha family and took to the traditional painting craft, specialising in the ''kachni'' (line drawing) style. She traveled abroad with her art and was a part of the ''Festival of India'' in the United States, which yielded a number of paintings under the title, ''America series'', including ''Moscow Hotel'', ''Festival of American Folk Life'', and ''Ride in a Roller Coaster''. The

Government of India The Government of India (ISO: ; often abbreviated as GoI), known as the Union Government or Central Government but often simply as the Centre, is the national government of the Republic of India, a federal democracy located in South Asia, ...

awarded her the ''National Master Craftsman Award'' and followed it up with the fourth highest civilian award of

Padma Shri Padma Shri ( IAST: ''padma śrī''), also spelled Padma Shree, is the fourth-highest civilian award of the Republic of India, after the Bharat Ratna, the Padma Vibhushan and the Padma Bhushan. Instituted on 2 January 1954, the award is conf ...

in 1984. In the 1980s, Ganga Devi painted the famous mural Kohbar Ghar or bridal nuptial chamber at the Crafts Museum in Delhi. The Mural was painted over a period of three to four months while Ganga Devi was undergoing chemotherapy in a Delhi Hospital. The Mural was demolished as part of a renovation plan at the Museum in early 2015.

Early life

When Ganga Devi was still a child, she was handed her first brush by her mother, which was made of rice straw and a few threads drawn from the hem of her

sari A sari (sometimes also saree or shari)The name of the garment in various regional languages include: * as, শাৰী, xārī, translit-std=ISO * bn, শাড়ি, śāṛi, translit-std=ISO * gu, સાડી, sāḍī, translit-std ...

. Ganga Devi took soot scraped from the bottom of a cooking pot, or from the chimney of a hurricane lantern and used it as ink. It was a common practice to mix the soot with cattle urine, gum arabic dissolved in water, or sometimes even goat's milk. She learnt this from her cousin sisters and aunts, their mothers and grandmothers. Due to lack of paper in the village, she used to practice on a canvas made from the pages of her school notebook that were often glued onto cloth.

Career

Ganga Devi got selected for the "Festival of India in US". She represented Indian art form in Russia and Japan. She narrated all her experiences through paintings, after which she was honored with the a National Award for Crafts by the Indian Government. When Ganga Devi was detected with cancer, in the 1980s, she could not go back to Mithila as she was prescribed regular

Chemotherapy Chemotherapy (often abbreviated to chemo and sometimes CTX or CTx) is a type of cancer treatment that uses one or more anti-cancer drugs ( chemotherapeutic agents or alkylating agents) as part of a standardized chemotherapy regimen. Chemothe ...

Notable Work

Ramayana Paintings

She painted the famous Indian Epic,

The Ramayana The ''Rāmāyana'' (; sa, रामायणम्, ) is a Sanskrit epic composed over a period of nearly a millennium, with scholars' estimates for the earliest stage of the text ranging from the 8th to 4th centuries BCE, and later stages ...

, in a series of paintings, with the use of subtle colors.

Manav Jivan (Life of Mankind) series

In this series, she painted the detailed life cycle including various stages, of a rural woman.

Artwork inspired from USA

When Ganga Devi traveled to the US, she translated her experiences into paintings. It was a series of her observations.

Personal life

Ganga Devi's married life was tormented. She was abandoned by her husband, as she could not conceive a child. He married another woman, to whom she lost everything. However, her destiny took a turn when a French art collector, who paid her for making some paintings for him. And from this point in her life, her career only expanded.