About the Artist : Invited as a visiting lecturer by Director of Ecole Regionala des Beaux-Arts, Caen, France for three months 1996-1997
Invited by Visva Bharati University for demonstration lecture on graphics at Kala Bhavan, Santiniketan 1996.
Teaching experience as part-time lecturer in Govt. College of Arts & Craft, Calcutta 1997-98.
About his works :
The recluses and sages that he creates in his etchings and lithographs on paper have a certain quality that places them above and beyond the ‘madding crowd’ of humanity. Although they are alone, they seem to be perceptive, judicious and erudite people who have seen and experienced the world as it is, and then made the choice to live apart from it.
In works with titles like ‘Hermit’ and ‘Solitude’, the artist’s flawlessly controlled use of shade and texture helps to build the characters of these subjects adeptly depicting their self-confidence and personal power. Basak places Sanskrit letters in these works to similarly portray a sense of age-old tradition, understanding and wisdom in a world that seems to have forgotten the value of everything that is not modern.
Collections of his works are housed in the National Gallery of Modern Art and the Lalit Kala Academy in New Delhi, the Baroda Palace Museum, the British Council in Bombay as well as in personal collections in Bombay, Calcutta, Baroda, Ahmedabad, Belgium, Singapore, Hong Kong, Switzerland, Germany, France, Japan and the UK.
Honours and Awards: 2000 French Government Scholarship, Ecole Superieure D’Art De Caen 2000 Charles Wallace India Trust Arts Scholar, Edinburgh 2000 Award from VII Biennial, 1st International Gravura Exhibition, Portugal 1996-97 Visiting lecturer in Ecole Regionale des Beaux-Arts, Caen, France 1998-2000 Junior Fellowship of Government of India, Department of Culture 1998 70th Annual All India Art Exhibition of All India Fine Arts and Crafts Society (AIFACS), New Delhi 1998 Eastern Indian Young Artist Exhibition by Orissa Lalit Kala Akademi 1996 Annual Art Exhibition of the Society of India, Mumbai 1996 Contemporary Art Exhibition, Birla Academy of Art and Culture, Kolkata 1995 Paschimbanga Rajya Charukala Pradarsani 1994-96 National Culture Scholarship, Government of India 1993-94 Awarded Research Grant of Lalit Kala Akademi, New Delhi 1994-95 All India Fine Arts Exhibition of Academy of Fine Arts, Kolkata 1992,96 All India Annual Art Exhibition of the Bombay.
