Postcard

Ghatsila

Signed and dated (indistinct)

Kaliyug?

Signed and dated 7/3/45?

During the 1940s, artists associated with Santiniketan and Kala Bhavana frequently used postcards as a means of correspondence, visual exchange, and informal artistic practice. In the pedagogical environment shaped by Rabindranath Tagore, such modest formats encouraged spontaneity and direct observation, allowing students and young artists to circulate drawings and brief notes outside the framework of exhibitions or formal study.

The present painted postcards, signed “Ramen,” one of them sent from Ghatsila, belong to this Santiniketan tradition of artistic correspondence. The other card bears a handwritten inscription that appears to read “Kaliyug,” recorded here as indistinct. They are provisionally attributed to Ramendranath Chakravorty, who would later become Principal of the Government School of Art, Calcutta. While attribution must remain cautious—several Santiniketan artists signed works using only first names—the postcards are firmly rooted in Santiniketan’s visual idiom and its culture of exchange.