Painting, man on sofa, by Jogen Chowdhury, ink and pastel on paper, India, ca. 1976

Painting, in ink and pastel on paper stuck down on board. The painting depicts the nearly full length view of a man wearing only a dhoti slouched in a large armchair. The man, shown sagging under his own weight, is portrayed in total contrast to the ideal of the Indian body. The figure is monumental, fleshy, sculptural and earthly. To create this effect, the artist uses numerous criss-cross lines and hatchings by pen and ink, and then covers the surface with pastel.

In a letter of 1986, the artist commented on the work by saying that 'Since it was the third large painting I painted in this technique, it certainly has a very prominent place in my work as a whole.' The painting is part of a larger body of works produced by the artist between 1973-1980. 'Man on Sofa', was painted alongside 'Life II (Couple)", which is now part of the artist's private collection. The work is typical of the artist in its emphasis on the excessivily fleshy figure. When the original frame was removed in December 1985, a thin strip 0.5 cm wide was revealed all around the painting, much paler than the control area. The pale areas of the figure are darkened by varnish, and theh black ground has been repainted since this original framing.

Nearly full length view of a man wearing only a dhoti slouched in a large armchair.

Purchased from Mrs Sarah Abraham.

Chowdhury was born in a village near Kotaliparha at Faridpur district, now Bangladesh, in 1939. In 1947, following the partition of Bengal, he moved with his family to Calcutta. In 1955 he entered the Government College of Art and Crafts. He became a teacher in a school in Howrah and in 1962 joined the Handloom Board as a textile designer. In 1965, the artist went to Paris and enrolled at the Ecole des Beaux Arts. In Paris, he attended Atelier 17, the studio of British Surrealist printmaker, William Hayter.
Chowdhury returned to India in 1968 and became a textile designer for the Madras Handloom Board.

In 1970 the artist published his first book of poems and joined the Calcutta Painters Group. Formed in 1943, the group’s leading members included sculptor Pradosh Das Gupta and the painters Gopal Ghose, Paritosh Sen, Zainul Abedin and Nirode Mazumdar. The group held exhibitions from 1945, and held a joint exhibition in 1950 with the Progressive Artists' Group in Bombay. In 1972 Chowdhury became the curator of the prestigious Rashtrapati Bhawan art collection (the official residence of the President of India). In 1975, he was responsible along with other Delhi artists, for founding Gallery 26 and the Artists' Forum. From 1976, onwards, Chowdhury participated in several exhibitions and international art camps abroad. He published a journal called ‘Art Today’ in 1981 in collaboration with artist Shuvaprasanna. In 1987, Chowdhury joined Kala Bhavan, Santiniketan as Professor of painting.

Chowdhury, initially drawn to the pictorial idiom of the Bengal School, soon realised that this particular style could not be used to portray the politically and socially charged atmosphere of Calcutta of the late Fifties and Sixties. During the Sixties, after returning from Paris, Chowdhury developed an individual style which focused on the grotesque depiction of men, women and animals. The artist portrayed a typology of sitters whose identity and social background remains unexplained. Subjects are depicted with sinuous lines contouring flaccid and decaying-looking bodies. Organic protuberances or growths from within emphasise the grotesque and uncanny personalities of these figures. In a letter in the V&A Museum archives, the artist explains that ‘I try and represent corrupt people in my paintings that have overgrown in such a proportion that they no more exist as human beings. They have become spineless creatures of fat and flesh. An image which I hate, I criticise, I satire and I am amused to look at and through which I also question.’ Chowdhury’s flat figures are often set against a blank background that is reminiscent of the spatial treatment of Kalighat pats and Company Paintings. To achieve sculptural and tonal variations, the artist crosshatches the surface with pen and ink and covers it with pastels. The artist has gradually moved to less controversial subjects and embraced a smaller pictorial format. Chowdhury lives and works in Santiniketan.

The painting depicts the nearly full length view of a man wearing only a dhoti slouched in a large armchair. The man, shown sagging under his own weight, is portrayed in total contrast to the ideal of the Indian body. The figure is monumental, fleshy, sculptural and earthly. To create this effect, the artist uses numerous criss-cross lines and hatchings by pen and ink, and then covers the surface with pastel.

In a letter of 1986, the artist commented on the work by saying that 'Since it was the third large painting I painted in this technique, it certainly has a very prominent place in my work as a whole.' The painting is part of a larger body of works produced by the artist between 1973-1980. 'Man on Sofa', was painted alongside 'Life II (Couple)", which is now part of the artist's private collection.

IS.85-1985