A standardised “sarkari chhap” building that looks like the letter L with a humongous bottom line and an undernourished top has come up at 85 AJC Bose Road in the Moulali area.
The building has a glass spine that divides it into two halves. The first half of this mass of concrete is painted cream, and the other is saffron.
Standing amid rows of dull grey houses on both sides of this arterial road, the freshly painted façade stands out. On the gate are emblazoned the words Lalit Kala Akademi (LKA) in saffron.
Well above this gate rise two upright pillars that support a slender horizontal beam. At the north end of the beam sits the Sarnath lion — the LKA emblem. This portal too is painted saffron and cream.
Hanging from the beam are festive buntings with the words Chhapchitra Katha in Bengali printed on the fabric along with popular Battala woodcut prints, all in black and white.
This is the new LKA Regional Centre, inaugurated on January 15 by Gajendra Singh Shekhawat, the Union minister of culture and tourism.
He also opened the 3rd Print Biennale India, 2026, being held on the same premises.
On the ground floor, close to the entrance, are blow-ups of the frontispieces of the earliest illustrated Bengali books, graphics by leading Bengali artists, giant print matrices by Tanmay Chakrabarty, an equally large copy of the iconic Kalighat Kali by Sayandip Kangshabanik and a canopy showing Samudra Manthan by Milton Bhattacharjee.
Bahari, an organisation of artists and art researchers led by ceramic artist Partha Dasgupta, juxtaposed traditional and modern prints.
It sets the stage for the print biennale being held in the four galleries on the second and third floors of this G+5 building.
Graphic prints from all over India and abroad are well displayed under Sayantan Maitra (Boka)’s supervision.
Three of the four galleries are named after Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar — not known for his affinity for art.
“It’s bigger than the LKA head office. Bengal is the only state with two regional centres. The National Buildings Construction Corporation erected the building. Apart from Bengal, Andaman & Nicobar are under this regional centre. It was built for ₹25 crore”, says Rahas Kumar Mahanty, regional secretary, Calcutta Regional Centre, LKA.
This centre houses studios for painting, sculpture, ceramics and graphics, a small auditorium, a guesthouse and dormitory, a library, storage facilities and a sales
counter.
But can only six to seven permanent staff maintain this huge and expensive infrastructure?
LKA had sought a plot from the state government, and around 2009, the Moulali plot (22,475sqft) was allotted.
A series of Vidyasagar’s ceramic portraits in muted greys and blues are part of a mural on the building’s façade. These were created at an LKA workshop mentored by Partha Dasgupta in 2023.
The theme of Vidyasagar continues in terracotta murals produced at a workshop conducted by terracotta artist Ram Kumar Manna.
A terracotta mural resembling the aftermath of a mudslide stands in the ground-floor lobby.
Although that is hardly an explanation, LKA office bearers say Vidyasagar was chosen as part of Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav to celebrate 75 years of Independence.
According to the LKA website, “Lalit Kala Akademi (National Academy of Art), New Delhi, was inaugurated on 5th August 1954 by the then Minister for Education, Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, and was registered under the Societies Registration Act 1860, on 11th March 1957”, and its focus is on the visual arts. LKA is an autonomous body to nurture and promote Indian art.
Calcutta’s first LKA regional centre was established in south Calcutta’s Keyatala Lane.
Siddhartha Ghosh, former regional secretary of LKA and printmaker who retired in 2018, says Jyoti Basu had inaugurated the LKA regional centre in 1984. It used to be sculptor Debi Prasad Roychaudhury’s studio. The then government had identified this Calcutta Improvement Trust land for his studio. It lay abandoned after the sculptor’s demise.
Debi Prasad’s student, sculptor Sankho Choudhury, who had played a prominent role in the development of the LKA and served as its chairman in the late 1980s, had established the Garhi student community studio in Delhi for all major disciplines in 1976. There was a demand for opening regional centres elsewhere.
Artist and printmaker Rm Palaniappan, who was regional secretary at the Chennai regional centre and retired from there in 2016, says the Chennai regional centre was inaugurated in 1978 by M.G. Ramachandan.
After that, came Lucknow around the same time. The Calcutta and Bhubaneswar regional centres opened almost simultaneously.
Siddhartha Ghosh said when senior Bengal artists approached Sankho Choudhury for a Calcutta centre of the LKA, the disused Debi Prasad studio was allotted.
Artists Paritosh Sen, Amitabha Banerjee, Bikash Bhattacharjee, Sanat Kar, Sunil Das and art historian Pranabranjan Ray were deeply involved in LKA activities. Huge litho presses used to make maps by the British, and litho stones that belonged to the state government were transferred to the new LKA regional centre.
Some of these antiques are displayed in the new LKA building. The brick building was constructed retaining the original studio as much as possible.
Artist Rabin Mondal’s brother had made the first litho press. The Keyatala centre has been refurbished, and it has ceramic furnaces and galleries.
Partha Dasgupta says: “Without LKA support and research grants, students of art institutions cannot survive. The infrastructure is fantastic. But with a limited number of permanent staff, it will be difficult to keep it going. There are no leading artists in Bengal who can speak for us.”
But will it lie inactive like the National Gallery of Modern Art in Currency Building which exists only in name?
Will the LKA be willing to extend the kind of support it used to earlier? Above all, will there be artistic freedom? Doubts linger.