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Showing posts from August, 2017

Excavation of a Forgotten Painter: The Moments of his Art

Subscribe In the earlier post I had tried to dig up the silken glow of Maniklal Banerjee, an eminent painter aligned to the Bengal School of Art, not so well remembered, who also happens to be my great grandfather. Like the familiar yet elusive beauty of his native village Sonaranga, he has remained less than fully tangible. He has remained somewhere amidst the luminous haze of family reminisces and the "ghost paintings"-as I call them- mere photographs retained of his best work on silk. I have received them archived on a CD disk, that came to me as a family heirloom.  Sonaranga of his younger days, drawn from memory and impressions. I have decided to call him, at times, by the name of Manik Babu, even though the man is both, a great painter and my great-grandfather instead of the more endearing “Boro-Dadu”. I have accused him at times in my mind, for remaining like a myth in our household. It was as if everybody knew half-truths about him, yet he did leave