Painting, Shiva and Parvati, by Dhirendranath Brahma, painting, watercolour on paper, India, ca. 1950

Painting, watercolour on paper, depicting Siva embracing Parvati, who holds out an offering bowl to him. The work is reminiscent of Kalighat painting from the 19th century, with the use of bold lines of colour and black and white outlines to emphasise the two figures. Brahma has used the miniature tradition coupled with Bengali folk art, much in line with his belief in the Neo-Bengal art tradition from Calcutta.

Purchased from Horizon Gallery. RF: 87/1642. Exhibited (and bought from) the Horizon Gallery, London, Connections exhibition with Amal Ghosh, August 1987.

Dhirendranath Brahma was born in 1924 in Barisal, (Bangladesh.) Brahma studied at the Government School of Art, Calcutta from 1941-46. Between 1948-1949 he worked under Nandalal Bose and Lakshmeshwar Singha at Santiniketan. In 1951 he began teaching at the Government School of Art in Calcutta and started collaborating with artist B.B. Mukherjee. From the late 1980s he accepted a major national mural commissions, regarding painting as a 'private process of meditative contemplation.'

At the time of purchase the artist was the Head of the Department of Painting at the Government College of Art in Calcutta, where he taught in the Neo-Bengal tradition of painting to his students, among them the painter Amal Ghosh.

'Purchase of painting by Dhirenranath Brahma Note' by Robert Skelton
The artist is Head of the Dept. of Painting in the Government College of Art in Calcutta where he has been transmitting the Neo-Bengal tradition of paintings to members of the newer generation of Indian artists. Most of the exhibitied paintings are examples of his current preoccupation with 'Tantric' symbolism combined uneasily with his Neo-Bengal School inheritance. The relationship with Nandalal Bose and B.B.Mukherjee is more clearly shown in the painting selected byt the Museum which shows the Gajan Dance of Siva and Parvati in which the 'miniature' style of the Neo-Bengal school is invigorated by contact with the Bengali folk tradition. The acquisition of a work by this artist bridges the gap between the Bengali revival of painting and contemporary artists such as Amal Ghosh, Brahma's student who exhibited in the same exhibition.

The watercolour depicts the Hindu god Siva embracing his spouse, the goddess Parvati, who holds out an offering bowl to him; the scene is typically known as 'Gajan Dance'. The work is reminiscent of Kalighat painting from the 19th century, with the use of bold lines of colour and black and white outlines to emphasise the two figures. Brahma has used the miniature tradition coupled with Bengali folk art, much in line with his belief in the Neo-Bengal art tradition from Calcutta.

Dhirendranath Brahma was born in 1924 in Barisal, (Bangladesh.) Brahma studied at the Government School of Art, Calcutta from 1941-46. Between 1948-1949 he worked under Nandalal Bose and Lakshmeshwar Singha at Santiniketan. In 1951 he began teaching at the Government School of Art in Calcutta and started collaborating with artist B.B. Mukherjee. From the late 1980s he accepted a major national mural commissions, regarding painting as a 'private process of meditative contemplation.'


At the time of purchase the artist was the Head of the Department of Painting at the Government College of Art in Calcutta, where he taught in the Neo-Bengal tradition of painting to his students, among them the painter Amal Ghosh.

IS.93-1987