Prokash Karmakar (1933-2014) lived in the city of Calcutta for most of his life. One of the greatest gifts to the city, Prokash made immense contributions to mainstream modern & post-modern Indian Art during the second half of the 20th century & the first few decades of the 21st.
Born to the well-known artist Prahlad Karmakar,who taught painting at the famous Government School(later College) of Art & Craft,Calcutta. At the time when Victorian ideas of sexual morality was strictly followed in British India, the Directorate of Public Instruction would not allow nude study in art institutions throughout the country. Prahlad arranged for nude classes in his studio & the students from the art school came for classes every evening. Young Prokash grew up in this intellectual & artistic atmosphere. However, a year before Independence Prahlad died. At the age of thirteen, he joined the defence party. During the clashes & the Calcutta killings,one night a group of thugs broke into his father’s studio & tore down Prahlad’s paintings from the wall & set them on fire. The incident angered Prokash & left a huge scar on him. At the age of fourteen,young Prokash found himself in a poverty stricken family,his mother feel ill & soon passed away. He soon joined the Government College of Art & Craft. For two years he struggled but as he hardly had any money,he found it difficult to continue his studies. In between he worked in a blockmakers outfit,subsidising his income by book cover designing & illustration. For a couple of years he drifted with the waves,struggling hard to keep his head out of the water. Finally he joined a large chemical firm that produced indigenous medicine where he rose to become the art director. For him,a permanent employment was a promise of security. However he longed to paint in his spare time. Kamalaranjan Thakur,once a student of Prahlad Karmakar began teaching him the techniques of transparent & opaque watercolours. Around 1959 after his brief coaching with Thakur,he joined Dilip Dasgupta’s studio. Here,before & after office hours,he concentrated in learning the art of instant sketching,life drawing & the use of various mediums like oils. The other members of the group like Karuna Shaha,Arun Bose,Sanat Kar,Santosh Rohatgi & Sukanta Basu were more advanced as they were not dropouts like him. Being very competitive he worked hard to recover lost ground. In 1959 he had his first pavement show on Sudder Street on the railings of the Indian Museum,he became famous overnight. The media acclaimed him as the messiah of contemporary art. The largest circulating Bengali newspaper even printed an editorial praising him for bringing art out in the open air.It was during this stint that he started participating in the newly formed Lalit Kala Akademi.
As he mastered a variety of mediums & techniques,he began to understand the principles involved in pictorial delineation,he felt the need to experiment with new modes & techniques of expression. It was at this time of crisis that his friend & artist Bijon Choudhury took him to one of the greats of 20th century Indian Art-Nirode Mazumdar(1916-1982). Mazumdar had returned from France after a twelve year stay. He had once been a student of Abanindranath Tagore & his Neo-Bengal School. As a young man he was involved in searching his roots. After his apprenticeship with Abanindranath,he rose up in revolt. He felt the school was a gymnasium that students the futile methods of rendering the classics in paraphrase. In 1943,he & a few other artists formed the ‘Calcutta Group’ that was later instrumental in inculcating the tradition of modernity in post colonial Indian art.
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