Akar Prakar gallery opened “Crafting Visions: The Art of Gouri Bhanja” on July 18, celebrating the pioneering artist’s work. The exhibition, curated by Debdutta Gupta, runs through August 16 and presents a comprehensive survey of Bhanja’s contributions to 20th-century Indian art.
Gouri Bhanja (1907-1998), daughter of master artist Nandalal Bose, transformed traditional Bengali art forms while working within the progressive artistic environment of Santiniketan. The exhibition highlights her innovations in alpana (traditional floor painting), batik dyeing techniques, and her role in major national projects including the illumination of India’s original Constitution.
“At long last, our Grandmother, Gouri Bhanja’s work gets a Solo exhibition outside of Santiniketan,” noted her grandson Shantanu Bhanja. The display encompasses the breadth of her artistic practice, from ritual floor paintings to textile design and performance art.
Bhanja’s most significant contribution lay in her reimagining of alpana, elevating the domestic art form into a sophisticated visual language used in murals, stage design, and public ceremonies. Her work preserved the spontaneous quality of hand-drawn forms while avoiding mechanical repetition, creating what curator Gupta describes as lines that “danced across space, embodying motion and meditative clarity.”
The artist also played a crucial role in introducing batik to Indian art education after Rabindranath Tagore’s 1927 journey to Java. Bhanja conducted extensive experiments with the Indonesian dyeing technique, integrating it into the Santiniketan curriculum where she taught at Kala Bhavana from the 1930s.
Beyond her artistic practice, Bhanja contributed to nation-building through her work on the Indian Constitution’s visual design between 1949-1950, creating the Chola-style Nataraja featured in the original manuscript. Her ceremonial alpana designs were commissioned for major state events, including Republic Day parades and dam inaugurations.
Born in Kharagpur in 1907, Bhanja also distinguished herself as a performer, dancing the lead role in Tagore’s “Natir Puja” in 1926. Her artistic vision extended to documenting everyday life, particularly women’s experiences, bringing aesthetic attention to previously marginalized subjects.
The exhibition reveals an artist who successfully bridged traditional craft practices with modernist principles, demonstrating how indigenous art forms could evolve within contemporary contexts. Her influence extended through her teaching at Visva-Bharati, where she trained successive generations of artists and craftspeople.
“Crafting Visions” presents archival works alongside finished pieces, offering insight into Bhanja’s creative process and her role in shaping modern Indian visual culture. The exhibition continues through August 16 at Akar Prakar, New Alipore, Kolkata.
All images are courtesy of Akar Prakar
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