Watercolour on Paper

30 x 17.5 In.

Signed & Dated in Bengali Lower Left

Year - 1987

Mrinal Kanti Das was a Bengal painter rooted in Santiniketan’s post-Nandalal Bose generation. Born in Midnapore, he trained at the Government College of Art & Craft, Kolkata, graduating first in his class in 1948. In the late 1960s, he joined Kala Bhavan, Visva-Bharati University as a lecturer, forming close working relationships with Binode Behari Mukherjee and Ramkinkar Baij, who arranged his exhibition at the Santiniketan gallery.

From 1970 until his death, Das headed the art department at Ramakrishna Mission while commuting to Kolkata to administer teaching at the Indian Society of Oriental Art. His patrons included Jamini Roy, Sunayani Devi, and Suniti Kumar Chatterjee, situating him within a direct lineage of Bengal modernism and its institutional circles.

Firmly identified with the Neo-Indian School founded by Abanindranath Tagore, Das worked in wash, transparent and opaque watercolour, ink and mixed media. Unlike many contemporaries, he avoided mythological themes, instead building a practice around observed life. His mature work is defined by attentive figuration — especially women in domestic or natural settings.

Sandip Sarkar, art historian, described his style as “a deliberate programme of reality and imagination,” maintaining classical Indian pictorial sensibilities without overt reference to miniatures or Ajanta.

This lot comes from  Das’s late period, when the female figure became his primary subject. The painting reflects his time at Santiniketan, where he worked alongside Binode Behari Mukherjee and Ramkinkar Baij, but the approach is personal rather than narrative. The subdued palette, careful gradation, and quiet sensuality are typical of the works he made through the 1980s.

Provenance -  Bowrings European & Modern & Contemporary Indian Paintings, 20th November 2002, Lot No 174