From: 27th May to 2nd June 2025
“INCREDIBLE LIFE STYLE OF INDIAN BABUMOSHAI”
Solo Show of Paintings
By
Renowned artist Pintu Paul
VENUE:
Jehangir Art Gallery
Kala Ghoda, Mumbai 400 001
Contact: 11am to 7pm.
Contact: 09830361795
ABOUT THIS EXHIBITION
Characterised by “gentle” characteristics and western education the rise of Bhadralok in the 19th century reflected changes in the nature of Bengali identity and subjectively. The colonial experience led to concern of Bengal elite to define for themselves a social class that would delineate their nobility and shape a new code of acceptance The “Babu” were associated with this new class of Bengalis eager to adopt Western manners and learn that they formed the bulk the workforce needed the cosmopolitan enclave of Calcutta Babumoshai enjoyed a style of life in common and was conscious of Its existence as a class organised to further its ends. The prototype Babu was one whose attire was a variety of English and Indian, claiming to be taught English and flaunting his status in society. The title “Babumoshai was added as a prefix or suffix to a person’s name to recognize (wealthy) Indians who had provided service and assistance to the British in establishing their commercial and political base in India. Raja Nabakrishna Deb of Sobhabazar Rajbari was first known ‘Babu’ from Calcutta. The rise of Bengali Babu(or Babumoshai) as a social class was mainly due to trade and Enterprise in British colonial Bengal.
Post 1857, we witnessed a change in the way these Babus were represented in popular domains. The young Bengali babu was presented as a cartoon character, a ridiculous fusion of East and West, wearing a Dhoti, coat and hat, wearing a monocle, carrying an umbrella and smoking a cigar. I tried to depict their lifestyle in this exhibition.
ABOUT MY ART
After meditative perseverance of more than two decade I the Kolkata based artist Pintu Paul has been able to arrive at a goal. I was striving for to devise an indigenous identity of my painting. My figurative forms now display dominance of linearity with a sobriety of folk tranquillity where the wisdom of neo- Indian style is transcended into post-1940-s modernistic approach of our art. In the mean time since the beginning we of twenty-first century I traversed through various forms like naturalism, realism, expressionism and different kinds of folk. All these tracks have lead me to this original expression I was striving for, very much akin to my own personality.
In my present forms I amalgamates various nuances of Indigenous folk tradition, the meditative inwardness of Indian classical sensibility.
The fantasy-oriented technique of transformation of human figures from naturalism towards an expressionist sobriety based on western modernistic formal orientation. Through synthesis of all this elements, local and global I posits a benign, lyrical, witty, pleasant and colourful exposition of life, where indigenous traditional identity plays a dominant role.
The subject of my paintings and drawings are mostly figurative. In the present series I works with Indian social life.
Pintu Paul
Artist
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