Progressive Artists Group Calcutta

Calcutta Group

In 1943, erstwhile Calcutta bore the brunt of a terrible famine that ravaged Bengal. The famine, which killed millions, was said to have been triggered by the wrong policies of the ruling British Government. This unprecedented devastation steered several artists into looking a new at their visual language.

A group of young artists decided to reject the lyricism and the romanticism seen in the work of earlier Bengali artists. Six among them formed the Calcutta Group. The founder members were sculptors Pradosh Dasgupta, his wife Kamala, painters Gopal Ghosh, Nirode Majumdar, Paritosh Sen and Subho Tagore. Others like Pran Krishna Pal, Govardhan Ash and Bansi Chandragupta joined later.

This group of artists expressed the need for a visual language that could reflect the crisis of urban society. For the first time in modern Indian art, artists began to paint images that evoked anguish and trauma and reflected the urban situation. Rural scenes were no longer purely idyllic, and the formal treatment of the paintings began to reflect the influence of European modernism.