Bhubaneswar, Aug. 29: The man, who brought Odisha's visual art to the international stage, passed away this morning.

Dinanath Pathy, who, even at the age of 74, was striving to bring Odia artists from across the country together on a common platform, died of a massive cardiac arrest with an unfinished dream of setting up an art museum in the state.

Today was also the day he had chosen to organise a first-of-its-kind art conclave to be hosted by the Ila Panda Centre for Arts, of which he was the chairperson. Now, the fraternity of artists and art lovers would come together to realise his dream by setting up the museum.

"He was making every effort to collect artworks of Odia artists. He had been working on the project for the past one year," said centre secretary Manas Jena.

A regular column writer for The Telegraph, Pathy felt there was no government art gallery, nor any policy to acquire the work of Odia artists.

"We have several art colleges, and even 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," he had written in an article published in 2015.

A pioneer of the contemporary art movement in Odisha, Pathy was the founder principal of the B.K. College of Art and Crafts. His body way carried to the institute after which it was taken to the regional centre of Lalit Kala Akademi with whom he had been associated for the past several years.

"He had complied a lot of information on Nabakalebar through his artworks," said regional centre secretary Ramkrishna Vedala.

Apart from being known for his creations and as an art historian and critic, Pathy was also a litterateur. He has penned more than 50 books in English, Odia and German, most of which were art fictions based on classical, traditional, tribal, folk, rural and contemporary art of Odisha. He received the Orissa Sahitya Akademi Award in 1993 for his autobiography Drawing Master of Digapahandi.

"His writing style was touching. I still remember the evenings when we used to sit over a cup of coffee and chat for hours discussing trends in the field of art. These days, I could not go out due to health issues, but we used to chat a lot over phone," said writer Bibhuti Patnaik.

He has also contributed to various dance concerts and festivals, including the first edition of Mukteswar festival in 1984 and the Konark dance festival in 1993.

A former secretary of the Lalit Kala Akademi, New Delhi, he was the recipient of a number of national and international awards, including the President of India Silver Plaque for Painting and the International Award in '98 China Art Exposition.

Hundreds of Pathy's students took part in his funeral procession. Many of them said he always went a step ahead to ensure that young artists from the state got national and international recognition.

Artist Krupasindu Barik said: "I used to stay near his house and was very interested in learning art, but I did not have the resources. He came to know about it and asked me to stay in his house. He took special care of mine and taught me the fundamentals of art."