topics: |  india | art | biography | children | picture-book |

A brilliant book that introduces Jamini Roy to children.  Fantastic artwork
by Soumya Menon accompanies a sparsely told tale of sleuthing out art fakes
and a not completely unexpected twist at the end...

A superb birthday gift for any child over 3...

Excerpts

JAMINI ROY was born in 1887 in Beliator, in the Bankura district of West
Bengal.  Inspired by the folk art that surrounded him in his village, he went
to study at the Government School of Art in Kolkata.

He trained in the established Western academic tradition of art and soon
became popular for his landscapes and portraits.  But he deliberately moved
away from that as well as the more delicate folkloric approach of the Bengal
School of art to create his own bold style that was rooted in local culture.

He held his first exhibition in Kolkata in 1929 and received the Viceroy's
gold medal for his painting, "Mother Helping the Child to Cross a Pool", in
1935. His first international exhibition was in London in 1946, and the
Indian government awarded him the Padma Bhushan in 1955. He died in 1972 at
his home in Kolkata, after producing around 32,000 paintings - more perhaps
than any other modern Indian artist.

Story

"Hurry up Biswajeet!" said Mashi. "Stop playing with your
food and let's go."

"But Mashi ... " began Biswajeet. Another art gallery?


madhulika sen meets the art gallery curator, paro. i wonder if the plump
art patron and the thin, waif-like museum girl, are stereotypes?  and what
of those glasses, pAro? 

At the gallery

A lady in a green-and-white cotton sari and a big red hindi rushed up to
them.

"Madhulika Sen?" she said. "So glad you could come.  I'm Paro.  We talked
on the phone."

"Paro! You must be so proud of this show," said Mashi.  She took a deep
breath. "Jamini Roy.  A true artist."

"Absolutely. Created his own style." But then Paro frowned. "Mind you,
these days you can't be sure which is a real Jamini Roy painting. There are
so many fakes floating around."

Biswajeet's eyes grew wide. Fakes?

Meeting with Dadu

He looked around. It was a room with white walls and pictures hung in
straight lines. He walked up to one of them. The text on the wall read
'Pujarin', and over it hung a painting of a woman in a blue sari with large
almond eyes, carrying a decorated puja thaali.

"A Santhal woman," someone whispered in his ear. [p.7]



Biswajeet looked around to see a frail old man.  "The artist's favourite
subject," said the man.  "Women from the Santhal tribe."

Biswajeet hurried away from him.  Why was the man staring at the painting
like that?

He looked around the gallery. There were lots more Santhal women in different
poses. And paintings of landscapes. [p.8]

"Creating," the old man whispered again.

"What?" asked Biswajeet. This time the man was studying a bright blue
painting of a cat eating a lobster. [p.9]


		cat eating lobster.  the paintings are
		all copies executed by menon... a lot of
		work!  are these forgeries, then?



"True art is creating, not copying." the man said, and suddenly he wasn't
whispering any more.

"Their ilish is the best in Kolkata," said Dadu, ordering it for both of them.

Finding the forger

"Here, climb on my back and look inside," said Dadu as they reached under a
window.

Biswajeet eased himself up, peered in ... and froze in shock!

The room was full of paintings just like the ones he had seen at Gallery 55,
including an exact replica of 'Pujarin'!

A man with a palette in hand was busy working on a painting.

Biswajeet whipped out his digicam and clicked.

Dadu's photograph

"Dadu, can I take a picture of you?" asked Biswajeet.

"How about here?" Dadu tood in front of a painting.

Biswajeet focused with his digicam but the picture was hazy. He could see
just a white light.

He zoomed his camera lens a little more and in the camera frame he saw only a painting.

"Dadu?" Biswajeet looked around.

He stepped closer to the painting. It was Dadu!

And underneath was written, 'Self-portrait: Jamini Roy.'



 
Jamini ray photo (source: iloveindia   "self-portrait"