About the Artist & his work :
Born in 1929, Howrah, Kolkata. The communal riots of 1946 and the Bengal famine of 1943 affected him and he took art as a weapon to protest. He gets his inspiration from primeval and tribal art and expresses his innermost self in his works. He portrays his works through his bold brush strokes, pencils, oils and charcoal and uses a dense palette of both pure and mixed colors. He firmly believes that his works are to communicate and not for decoration.
The series Queen, King, Man represent figures that are static, totemic, tragicomic, ruthlessly shattered and ruined. Having subverted the classical canons of harmony and beauty, Mondal invented a language in paint that could express his anguish and rage towards the decadence and frequent inhumanity he saw. Even the expressionistic use of splattered colours, the bold and enormous application of black, is representative of this symptom.
Mondal’s art is typically known for its inspiration from primitive and tribal art and for its potent simplifications and raw energy
Mondal was a Lalit Kala Akademi member from 1979-1982 that has also published a book of his drawings. Almost 70 years old now, he is based in Howrah, Kolkata, from where he began his artistic career.
Education :
1959 Completed his Art Appreciation Course, Ashutosh Museum, Kolkata University, Kolkata.
1956-58 Attended Evening Classes, Indian College of Art and Draughtmanship, Kolkata.
1952 Bachelor of Commerce, Vidyasagar College, Kolkata University, Kolkata.
Honours and Awards :
2001 Abanindranath Puraskar, awarded by the Department of Information and Culture, Government of West Bengal, Kolkata
1996 ‘Eminent Painter’, All India Fine Arts and Crafts Society (AIFACS), New Delhi.
Samir Dutta, art critic of the Kolkata based Statesman newspaper, who has also made a TV documentary on him, says, “Mondal has evolved a signature of his own. His style over decades of defiant, bold experiments takes in imagery of primeval humans asserting themselves against great odds in a dense palette of both pure and mixed colors. Here you have formidable drama, a throbbing theatre of primitive that has its basis in remorseless jungle of today`s urban existence.”
Mondal has also been quite active with the avant-garde artist`s organizations in the city. He was a Lalit Kala Akademi member from 1979-1982 that has also published a book of his drawings. It has taken Rabin Mondal decades to emerge as one of India`s leading modern painters. Almost 70 years old now, he is based in Howrah, Kolkata, from where he began his artistic career.
