Ganesh Pyne

Painter | India

Born in 1937

Died in 2013

« Ganesh Pyne: “He was a poet of melancholia”. »

Born in Bengal, Pyne was only nine when he witnessed the widespread killings of Direct Action day riots of 1946. The memories of the corpse loaded carts left a cavernous mark on his mind. Pyne’s creative world was seeded by his grandmother’s stories. Full of mystic fantasy and a portal to fairyland, his works touches the deepest of the gloomy subconscious. Soon he discovered the Nationalist art by artists Sunayni Devi and Abhinendranath Tagore and in 1959 he graduated from Govt. collage of art and crafts. The same year he joined Mandar Studio owned by Mandar Mullick who gave him the opportunity to learn the play of cartoons, as a result of which he was trained under Clair Weeks, a veteran Disney animator. From there Pyne’s works draws the distorted figures with unforbidden exaggeration. His works possess scenes from various Avant-Garde cinema as well. In 1963, Pyne quit his job and joined the Society of Contemporary Artists, an organisation of painters, sculptors and printmakers based in Kolkata. Pyne started with mediums like watercolours, moved on to gouache, and finally found tempera as his major medium. Since 1960s, he began to apply multiple layers of translucent colours on the canvas and then burnished it, he made areas of light birthing the areas of shadows. These works by him were intricate and time taking. The artist despite of his, much applaud worthy work received recognition quite later in his career with the exhibition at The Village Gallery held in 1980s.

Credentials
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Ganesh Pyne

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Ganesh Pyne: “He was a poet of melancholia”

Painter | India

Born in 1937

Died in 2013

Ganesh Pyne
You would like to invest in this artist?

Contact us via email

Born in Bengal, Pyne was only nine when he witnessed the widespread killings of Direct Action day riots of 1946. The memories of the corpse loaded carts left a cavernous mark on his mind. Pyne’s creative world was seeded by his grandmother’s stories. Full of mystic fantasy and a portal to fairyland, his works touches the deepest of the gloomy subconscious. Soon he discovered the Nationalist art by artists Sunayni Devi and Abhinendranath Tagore and in 1959 he graduated from Govt. collage of art and crafts. The same year he joined Mandar Studio owned by Mandar Mullick who gave him the opportunity to learn the play of cartoons, as a result of which he was trained under Clair Weeks, a veteran Disney animator. From there Pyne’s works draws the distorted figures with unforbidden exaggeration. His works possess scenes from various Avant-Garde cinema as well. In 1963, Pyne quit his job and joined the Society of Contemporary Artists, an organisation of painters, sculptors and printmakers based in Kolkata. Pyne started with mediums like watercolours, moved on to gouache, and finally found tempera as his major medium. Since 1960s, he began to apply multiple layers of translucent colours on the canvas and then burnished it, he made areas of light birthing the areas of shadows. These works by him were intricate and time taking. The artist despite of his, much applaud worthy work received recognition quite later in his career with the exhibition at The Village Gallery held in 1980s.

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Credentials

Prizes
  • Gagan Abani Puroskar, Visva Bharati, 1997
  • D.Litt (Honorary), Netaji Subhash Open University, Kolkata 2009
  • Raja Ravi Varma Award from the Kerala Government 2011
  • Government College of Arts and Craft, Kolkata 1955
  • D.Litt (Honorary), Netaji Subhash Open University, Kolkata 2009
Solo Exhibitions
  • ‘Sketches’, The Village Gallery, New Delhi
  • ‘Jottings’, The Gallery, Kochi
  • ‘Ganesh Pyne: A Retrospective 1952-1998’, Centre for International Modern Art (CIMA), Kolkata
  • ‘Jottings’, The Village Gallery, New Delhi
  • Chamatkara – Myth and Magic in Indian Art’, Whitley’s Art Gallery, London
Group Exhibitions
  • 'Germinal', presented by Sanchit Art, New Delhi at India Art Fair, New Delhi
  • 'Transition', 20th Anniversary Show, Centre of International Modern Art(CIMA), Kolkata
  • Color of Independence’, organized by Centre for International Modern Art (CIMA), Kolkata in association with National Gallery of Modern Art (NGMA), New Delhi at National Gallery of Modern Art (NGMA), New Delhi
  • Tryst with Destiny – Art from Modern India’, organized by Centre for International Modern Art (CIMA), Kolkata and Singapore Art Museum, Singapore in association with National Gallery of Modern Art (NGMA), New Delhi at Singapore Art Museum, Singapore
Publications
  • Ganesh Pyne: A painter of Eloquent Solitude by Pranabranjan Ray
  • Ganesh Pyne by Shilpa Chinta

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