Sunil Das (4 August 1939 – 10 August 2015) was an Indian

expressionist Expressionism is a modernist movement, initially in poetry and painting, originating in Northern Europe around the beginning of the 20th century. Its typical trait is to present the world solely from a subjective perspective, distorting it rad ...

painter. He is known for the paintings in his Bull Series and his piece "Woman". In 2014 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, ...

conferred upon him its fourth-highest civilian award, the

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 ...

Early life and background

Sunil Das was born in

Calcutta Kolkata (, or , ; also known as Calcutta , List of renamed places in India#West Bengal, the official name until 2001) is the Capital city, capital of the Indian States and union territories of India, state of West Bengal, on the eastern ba ...

now

Kolkata Kolkata (, or , ; also known as Calcutta , the official name until 2001) is the capital of the Indian state of West Bengal, on the eastern bank of the Hooghly River west of the border with Bangladesh. It is the primary business, comme ...

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

. He joined the

Government College of Art & Craft, Kolkata 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 classes ...

in 1955, then won a French Government Scholarship to study at the

École des Beaux-Arts École des Beaux-Arts (; ) refers to a number of influential art schools in France. The term is associated with the Beaux-Arts style in architecture and city planning that thrived in France and other countries during the late nineteenth centur ...

in Paris. He died in 2015.

Career

Das joined Government of India's Handloom division,

Ministry of Textiles The Ministry of Textiles is an Indian government national agency responsible for the formulation of policy, planning, development, export promotion and regulation of the textile industry in India. This includes all natural, artificial, and ce ...

.. Sunil Das was one of India's most important post-modernist painters. He went through different styles of painting throughout his career. Das said,"To prevent myself from producing the same kind of work, I keep altering my vision. From the day people begun to see me as a painter, a huge responsibility fell upon me, particularly to respond to the feelings of the people at the grassroots level who are also my viewer, as also to delve deep into realities of life around me." At 60 years of age, he could look back at his nine to ten phases of paintings, all of them marked by supreme skill and a sense of integrity. An indefatigable painter, Das jumped from one style to another easily. He was inspired by the force and the strength of the moving horse and went on to create a work made out of charcoal titled- ''Horses in Motion''. His works revolved around ''Man-Woman relationships'', ''Woman in her sexual empowerment'' and ''In her loneliness''. He had around 88 solo exhibitions across the world including having his work included in the

Paris Biennale The ''Biennale de Paris'' (English: Paris Biennale) is a noted French art festival. History The 'Biennale de Paris' was launched by Raymond Cogniat in 1959 and set up by André Malraux as he was Minister of Culture to present an overview of young ...

. He was the founding member of the Society of Contemporary Artists.

/h1>
* Bull series * A woman in her failings (oil on canvas) * Horse series (charcoal)

References

External links

Profile on Delhi Art Gallery
{{DEFAULTSORT:Das, Sunil Indian male painters 1939 births Indian Expressionist painters Government College of Art & Craft alumni University of Calcutta alumni École des Beaux-Arts alumni Artists from Kolkata Recipients of the Padma Shri in arts 2015 deaths 20th-century Indian painters Painters from West Bengal 20th-century Indian male artists 21st-century Indian male artists