The other day, I was reading the drafts of a book being edited by Sangram Jena. They had statements by 22 Odia artists who are no more with us. But these artists laid the foundation of modern Odia art in the 20th century.

Their statements were answers to a standard question posed by the editor of popular monthly magazine Dagara, published from Cuttack. The question was: "How have you been influenced by art in your life?" or "What was the impact of art on your life?"

Their statements were half a century old and reflected the social condition of Odisha, response of the government and patronage and facilities available to them in their time. My job was to write an introduction to the book.

I found their answers quite revealing and that told me a story of 20th century Odisha. Their time was eventful but riddled with calamities, poverty and negligence. There were no art schools in Odisha, the first government art school having been established at Khallikote in the year 1957. The feeble government help benefited three or four scholars. The director of public instruction used to award meritorious students to study art outside Odisha. By then, attempts by the artists such as Bibhuti Kanungo, Muralidhar Tali and Gouranga Charan Som to open art school at Cuttack had failed. Sarat Chandra Debo, erstwhile prince of Chikiti, succeeded, but only for a short time. This was the Utkal School of Arts at his own palace in Berhampur, which the great artist from Santiniketan visited in 1945.

Debo had appointed Muralidhar Tali as a lecturer in his school and had Raghunath Singh, Lakshmidhar Das and Rabinarayan Nayak as students.

The artists who have been featured in this book include Bimbadhar Verma, Gopal Kanungo, Gouranga Charan Som, Muralidhar Tali, Bibhuti Kanungo, Bipin Behari Choudhury, Bipra Charan Mohanty, Ajit Keshari Ray, Durga Prasad Patnaik, Yadunath Supakar, Jagannath Das and Ila Das (later married to Bansidhar Panda). Significant omissions in this panel of illustrious Odia artists were Sarat Chandra Debo, Upendra Maharathi, Binod Routray and Asit Mukharji, who along with Asim Basu was responsible for bringing in a change in book illustrations.

Bimbadhar was the only unschooled artist in the group. Gopal Kanungo was a Ravenshawavian and first graduate among the artists. But, it was an irony that he had to be contented with the post an art teacher in the school and was vice-president of Orissa Lalit Kala Akademi at the time of his death.

Gopal Kanungo (1904-1971) was one of the major personalities of the 20th century Odisha, who is respectfully remembered as an art teacher, essayist, author, poet, translator, teacher and critic. In this paintings, although he endeared pronounced facets of modernism like cubism, impressionism, and expressionism, he evolved a visual neologism using academic watercolour, early Bengal wash and Odisha traditional gouache. One is amused at his stirring of gothic revival.

Bipin Bihari Choudhury (1905-1982) was the only ARCA (Associated Royal Collage of Art), London and this position has not been surpassed till date. A physically challenged artist by sheer dint of his determination and commitment, he could prove himself as an excellent academic painter. He was the master of lines and his quick sketches of several national leaders can only be compared with the line work of Gopal Kanungo. He toured the world and got acquainted with world art movement.

Sarat Chandra Debo (1911-1973) strived to infuse Indian-ness into his creation. His synthesising approach to bring in a happy marriage of the eastern theme with a western style and gradually enveloping other areas of aesthetic vocabulary, did add credentials to his personal idioms. He pursued a style of eclecticism.

Ajit Kesary Ray (1922-2011), along with Ananta Panda, could extricate himself from the revivalist trend of art that grew up in Santiniketan to protest against Western academic art. He was a modernist and his painting 'Flight' won him an award in the modern art category at the first annual exhibition of Odisha Lalit Kala Akademi in 1962. Ajit Kesary was as naive and restless in his endless exploration into the exciting new idioms/form of artistic expression, which came to him from a variety of sources, both Indian and Western. From naturalism to cubism to the abstract, Ajit Kesary, tentatively yet restlessly, journeyed through. and could not gauze the impending change<>. Most of the artists who spoke their mind were extremely emotional and praised rural life that was unspoilt and unblemished. Their's was a sense of idealism which was almost utopian in nature. A few artists such as Muralidhar Tali, Jadunath Supakar, Gauranga Charan Som and Durgaprasad Patnaik could not survive in Odisha and it was but natural on their past to migrate.

Odisha of the fifties and the Odisha of today has not radically changed in terms of opportunity for art practice and getting art patrons. Of course, we have several art colleges and on the top of it a university for art and music, which produces a number of artists without any focus on Odisha. They do not have opportunities for employment and therefore forced to migrate. The government does not have an art gallery and no policy to acquire the work of Odia artists. Of course, the art of yesterdays and that of today have different vision and focus. Emotion, which was an essential ingredient of early 20th century Odia art, has given place to an issue-based international art. The artists who paved the way for early modernism in Odisha have been forgotten. The book that will soon be published with statements packed with the innocence, emotion and commitment of Odia artists, will revive our interest in Odisha art history.

However, the question of Odia art's future hangs like the sword of Damocles over us.

(The author is an artist and art historian)