Sunil Madhav Sen (1910 - 1979)

Mixed Media on Board

22 x 14 Inches

Sunil Madhav Sen was a self-taught modernist from Bengal. He was born in Purulia and raised in Bankura, a region he credited for shaping his artistic vision. “It is the memories of those twelve years in Bankura that have shaped me into the Sunil Madhav Sen of today,” he once said. The folk art, ritual practices, and clay idols of the Rarh region left a lasting impact on his work.

Sen trained briefly under Hemen Majumdar and worked at Porter Studios in Calcutta. In his early years, he painted portraits and landscapes. But by the 1950s, his style began to shift. He started experimenting with surface, texture, and new materials—often using oil, glue, mosaic, and metal. He even developed his own process for softening oil paint using turpentine and zinc.

Alongside his grounding in folk tradition, Sen drew inspiration from European masters such as Raphael, Rembrandt, Goya, and Picasso. These influences helped shape a practice that was both deeply local and fully engaged with the language of modernism.

In 1951, Sen joined the Calcutta Group. His work stood apart for its material innovation and intuitive approach. As sculptor Prodosh Dasgupta noted, “What appealed to us most was his untrained yet skilled craftsmanship, which we believed would lead him far with his own individual expression.”

This work reflects that experimental period. The use of board, layered pigment, and mixed media is typical of the direction Sen’s practice took in the 1960s and ’70s. His process remained grounded in memory and material—always personal, always rooted in place.