A painting by Dipak Banerjee at Galerie 88

Galerie 88 presented a superb graphic exhibition of five artists christened Pioneered Printmakers of Bengal. The title is a bit misleading because the artist Krishna Reddy is not a Bengali artist. He is an American of Indian origin. Among the other four Somnath Hore happens to be one of the greatest printmakers of recent times while Sanat Kar, Lalu Prasad Shaw and Dipak Banerjee are major artists in this field. But unfortunately they are do not happen to be the pioneers of this field as suggested by the title. The original pathfinders were Annada Prasad Bagchi, Gaganendranath Tagore, Nandalal Bose, Mukul Dey, Ramendranath Chakravorty, Saifuddin Ahmed and Haren Das. Among the contemporaries of the five on view Shyamal Dutta Roy, Arun Bose, Amithaba Banerjee, Suhas Roy and Tapan Ghosh have been left out probably unintentionally.

In spite of such omissions the show is excellent as it captures the mood and experiments of graphic art between 1960-80. Somnath Hore’s lithographs are done with taut lines and capture his distressed feelings for emaciated people particularly children during the war devastated period of 1943 when famine had cast its shadow. Within the line drawing Hore has put in shades and highlighted on naked bodies of these skeletal figures to make the visuals poignant. Sanat Kar’s etchings, wood and cardboard intaglio oscillate often meaningfully between the figure and linear abstraction. The lines encasing the figures are spontaneous and spasmodic while the background has free flowing criss-cross hatching that creates an atmosphere either of mystery or stark reality. For Lalu Prasad Shaw the medium or surface, is the message. He excels in composing geometric motifs in a whole with suggestive markings where signs become songs without sound and colours visual accompaniment. Shaw’s lithographs were on view but he is equally a master of etching, engraving and intaglio. From the world of prophetic denouncement with definite political message of Somnath Hore through secular imagery of Sanat Kar to the pure geometric abstraction and visionary metaphors of Dipak Banerjee. In etching he imposes the symbols of Vishnu and Shiva along with Purusa and Prakriti (male and female principles) in reverse position. The selection and mingling of colours are his forte. There are certain ‘study’ works from 1970-73 that do not go with his religious ones.