Indian modernist painter Jogen Chowdhury dies at 87

Jogen Chowdhury, one of India's best-known modernist painters, died on October 25 at the age of 87. He died in a hospital in Kolkata, the city where he had studied as a young man.

Indian Express reported that he died at Ruby General Hospital. Indian media reports cited by ARTnews said he had been suffering from a rare blood cancer for more than a year. Gallerist Somak Mitra of Art Exposure confirmed the death.

Chowdhury was born on February 16, 1939, in Daharpara village in Faridpur, then part of undivided Bengal. He trained at the Government College of Art & Craft in Kolkata from 1955 to 1960. He then studied at the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris, the national fine arts school, in the 1960s, and returned to India in 1968.

In Paris he won the Prix de la Jeune Peinture, a prize for young painters, in 1966. He was later recognised at the Second Havana Biennial in Cuba in 1986. In 1972 he worked as curator of the Art Gallery of Rashtrapati Bhavan, the gallery at the official residence of India's president.

His career also reached into public life. In April 2014 he was elected to the Rajya Sabha, the upper house of India's Parliament, as a member of the Trinamool Congress party in West Bengal. He served until April 2020. He received the Kalidas Samman in 2001 and the Banga Bibhushan in 2012, both state honours.

Reports describe his work as a mix of traditional imagery and modern style. Times of India wrote that he was admired for his fluid line, and that his work explored human frailty. A Mumbai exhibition in 2023 showed his drawings, paintings and archives from 1955 to 2023.

Tributes came quickly. Suvendu Adhikari called him "a towering pillar of our cultural world" and said his artistic legacy would be "immortal through the ages." Kolkata painter Samir Aich said the death was a personal loss, and also the closing of a chapter for the Bengal School of Art, the movement that shaped modern painting in the region.

For many people in Kolkata, the news lands close to home. Chowdhury spent most of his working life in the city, and his name is tied to its art schools, galleries and exhibitions. His death ends a long career that moved between Bengal, Paris and Delhi, and between the studio and public office.