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{{EngvarB|date=September 2014}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=September 2014}}
{{Infobox artist
| name = Ganesh Pyne
| image =
| image_size =
| alt =
| caption =
| birth_date = {{Birth date|df=yes|1937|06|11}}<ref name=teh/>
| birth_place = [[Kolkata]], [[West Bengal]], [[India]]
| death_date = {{Death date and age|df=yes|2013|03|12|1937|06|11}}
| death_place = [[Kolkata]], [[West Bengal]], [[India]]
| nationality = [[India]]n
| spouse =
| known_for = painting, drawing
| training = [[Government College of Art & Craft]]
| movement = Indian modern art
| notable_works =
| patrons =
| awards =
| website = 
}}

'''Ganesh Pyne''' ([[Bengali language|Bengali]]: গণেশ পাইন) (11 June 1937 – 12 March 2013)<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/legendary-painter-ganesh-pyne-dies-515958|title=Legendary painter Ganesh Pyne dies|website=NDTV.com|access-date=2018-12-29}}</ref> was an Indian painter<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/magazines/panache/astaguru-auction-house-to-host-online-sale-of-amrita-sher-gil-husain-padamsee-works/articleshow/67139036.cms|title=Astaguru Auction House to host online sale of Amrita Sher-Gil, Husain, Padamsee works|date=2018-12-18|work=The Economic Times|access-date=2018-12-29}}</ref> and draughtsman, born in [[Kolkata]], West Bengal. Pyne is one of the most notable contemporary artists of the [[Bengal School of Art]], who had also developed his own style of "poetic surrealism", fantasy and dark imagery, around the themes of Bengali folklore and mythology.<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.thehindu.com/entertainment/art/the-lonely-traveller/article24653631.ece|title=The lonely traveller|last=Palisetty|first=Ramya|date=2018-08-10|work=The Hindu|access-date=2018-12-29|language=en-IN|issn=0971-751X}}</ref>

==Early life and education==
Born and brought up in Kolkata, living in a crumbling family mansion in Kabiraj Row, north [[Calcutta]] (now Kolkata), Pyne grew up listening to his grandmother's folktales and reading fantastic stories from children's books, which was to create the vocabulary of his future art.<ref name=zee/> Also during his childhood years, he flipped through, ''Mouchak'', a Bengali children's magazine, to which his family subscribed, he came across a printed drawing by [[Abanindranath Tagore]], the founder of the [[Bengal school]] art movement. This had deep impact on him, and he started reading avidly and drawing on his [[Slate (writing)|black slate]] with chalk for hours.<ref name=et13/> However, much greater impact was to come in 1946, first his father died early in the year, and his family was caught up in the [[Great Calcutta Killings|Calcutta riots]], which preceded the [[partition of India]], and they had to be escorted to a safe zone at the Calcutta Medical College. This trauma at age 9, had a lasting impact on his life and work.<ref name=teh>{{cite web |title=A Poet of Melancholy |url=http://tehelka.com/a-poet-of-melancholy/ |date=23 March 2013 |publisher=Tehelka, Issue 12 Volume 10 |accessdate=18 March 2013}}</ref><ref name=exppyne13/> He studied at [[Government College of Art & Craft]], an educational institution closely associated with Bengal School of Art, and graduated in 1959.<ref name=zee>{{cite news |title=Ganesh Pyne- The king of dark imagery |url=http://zeenews.india.com/entertainment/art-and-theatre/ganesh-pyne-the-king-of-dark-imagery_129856.htm |publisher=Zee News |date= 13 March 2013 |accessdate=18 March 2013}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |title=Artist of Disquiet and Twilight Mysteries |url=http://www.telegraphindia.com/1130319/jsp/opinion/story_16686901.jsp#.UUfcgxdTCHg |publisher=The Telegraph |date=19 March 2013 |accessdate=19 March 2013 }}</ref>

==Career==
Pyne commenced his artistic career in the early 1950, as a book illustrator and a sketching for animation films at Mandar Mullick's studio in Kolkata. During this period, not having enough money to buy colours, he made small drawings in pen and ink; and in 1963 joined the Society for Contemporary Artists, which had local artists like Bikash Bhattacharjee, Shyamal Datta Ray,Dharmanarayan Dasgupta and [[Ganesh Haloi]].<ref name=exppyne13>{{cite news |title= Ganesh Pyne: An 'introvert' whose dark art was 'ahead of his time' |url=http://www.indianexpress.com/news/ganesh-pyne-an-introvert-whose-dark-art-was-ahead-of-his-time/1087100/0 |publisher=Indian Express |date= 13 March 2013 }}</ref><ref name=outlook>{{cite web |title=TRIBUTE: Easel By The Window |url=http://www.outlookindia.com/article.aspx?284391 |author=S. Kalidas |date=25 March 2013 |publisher=[[Outlook (Indian magazine)|Outlook]] |accessdate=19 March 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130319162211/http://outlookindia.com/article.aspx?284391 |archive-date=19 March 2013 |url-status=dead }}</ref>

His early work was deeply influenced by the Bengal school and especially Abanindranath Tagore was in water colour,<ref name=trends/> and his first painting "Winter's Morning", portrayed him going to school along with his brother.<ref name=zee/> Further he added the influences of [[Frans Hals]], [[Rembrandt]]'s handling of [[chiaroscuro]] and [[Paul Klee]]'s simplicity and [[cubism]] in developing his own style of "poetic surrealism", around themes from Bengali folklore and mythology. His artistic breakthrough was preceded by his years as an animator in Kolkata and exposure to [[Walt Disney]]'s cartoons. Being a cinema buff, he also took inspiration from European black-and-white cinema masters, [[Ingmar Bergman|Bergman]], [[Wajda]] and [[Fellini]].<ref name=outlook/><ref name=trends>{{cite book |title=Trends in Modern Indian Art |chapter=8. Indian Art since 1960|author=Sunil Kumar Bhattacharya |publisher=M.D. Publications Pvt. Ltd. |year=1994|isbn=8185880212 |page=55 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=SIs5qkjljpQC&q=Ganesh+Pyne&pg=PA55 }}</ref><ref name=exp/>

{{Quote box|quote= "Artists of our generation painted for the love of art. <br />I feel one should have an unwavering affair with ones creativity. <br /> Otherwise, you are swept away by the tide"|source= – Ganesh Pyne<ref name=et13/>}}
The 1970s were the painter's important period, he had moved to water colours,<ref name=zee/> in a tumultuous period of anger and despair in Bengal that found expression in his art. During this period, a Mumbai magazine, ''[[The Illustrated Weekly of India]]'' published an article where a leading contemporary artist, [[M.F. Hussain]], when asked to rank who the best painter in India was, named 37-year-old Pyne, considering it was a period, when Francis Souza, Tyeb Mehta and Syed Raza were leading painters, this episode immediately brought him into the limelight.<ref name=et13>{{cite news |title='Master fantasistâ Ganesh Pyne passes away|author=Ashoke Nag|url=http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2013-03-13/news/37683946_1_ganesh-pyne-indian-art-art-world |publisher=The Economic Times |date=13 March 2013 |accessdate=18 March 2013}}</ref><ref name=exppyne13/> Through the '60s and '70s, a painter who became famously reclusive in his later years, remained active in daily '' [[Adda (South Asian)|adda]]'' culture of Kolkata.<ref>{{cite web|title=Ganesh Pyne: A philosopher & reclusive minstrel |url=http://www.hindustantimes.com/Entertainment/Art/Ganesh-Pyne-A-philosopher-amp-reclusive-minstrel/Article1-1025438.aspx |date=13 March 2013 |publisher=Hindustan Times |accessdate=18 March 2013 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130317184736/http://www.hindustantimes.com/Entertainment/Art/Ganesh-Pyne-A-philosopher-amp-reclusive-minstrel/Article1-1025438.aspx |archive-date=17 March 2013 |df=dmy }}</ref> He participated in [[Paris Biennale]] in 1969 and contemporary Indian Painting in West Germany in 1970.<ref name=zee/> However, by the time, the India art boom arrived in the 1980s, he started largely keeping to himself, fazed by the commercialism.<ref>{{cite news |title=Editorial: Pyne's troubled legacy |url=http://www.business-standard.com/article/opinion/pyne-s-troubled-legacy-113031600287_1.html |publisher=Business Standard |date=16 March 2013 |accessdate=19 March 2013}}</ref>

{{quote|1=He was the only significant artist of his generation who side stepped the progressives of the forties and reconnected with the Bengal School and managed to benefit from that contact, forging a personal modernist idiom rather than slipping into non-productive traditionalism.<ref>http://www.sunday-guardian.com/artbeat/bengal-mourns-farewell-to-the-interpreter-of-thanatos</ref>|4 = [[R. Siva Kumar]]|5='''The Sunday Guardian'''.}}

In a career spanning decades, his abstract and surrealist paintings starting with watercolours and later in [[gouache]] and [[tempera]],<ref name=teh/> were exhibited in group exhibitions across India and in Paris, London, Washington and Germany.<ref name=exp/> Though, he was never prolific, continued to shun both limelight and art collectors alike, and never held any major exhibition, preferring to show his paintings three at a time, as Society of Contemporary Artists, Kolkata to which he belonged. In fact, his first solo exhibition was only held after he was 50 at The Village Gallery in Delhi,<ref name=exppyne13/> and Centre of International Modern Art, Kolkata organised the first major exhibition of his work as late as in 1998. Yet, through the 1980s to the '90s, his work fetched one of the highest priced amongst an Indian artists, and he had already established himself amongst leading painters of Bengal school, like [[Bikash Bhattacharjee]], [[Jogen Chowdhury]] and [[Somnath Hore]] and influenced a generation of painters.<ref name=teh/><ref name=zee/> In his later years, Pyne undertook a series of works that drew from the [[Mahabharata]] but focused on the peripheral characters of that epic such as [[Ekalavya]] and [[Amba (Mahabharata)|Amba]] and these were exhibited in Kolkata in 2010.<ref name="guardian">{{cite news|title=Ganesh Pyne obituary|url=https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2013/mar/20/ganesh-pyne|accessdate=22 April 2013|newspaper=The Guardian|date=20 March 2013}}</ref>

Pyne died on 12 March 2013 at a Kolkata hospital where he was admitted following a heart attack, at the age of 76. He is survived by his wife and son.<ref name=exp>{{cite news|title=Legendary painter Ganesh Pyne passes away|url=http://www.indianexpress.com/news/legendary-painter-ganesh-pyne-passes-away/1086935/|accessdate=12 March 2013|newspaper=Indian Express|date=12 March 2013}}</ref>

== Artistic approach ==
Pyne started as a watercolourist in the [[Bengal school]] mode, and gradually shifted to gouache and finally to tempera, for his subsequent abstract and surrealist work period, in ochre, black and blue shades.<ref name=zee/><ref name=exppyne13/> According to painter [[Bhupen Khakhar]], ''"his personal encounters/interactions with violence at a tender age formed his dark background.., while his language was formed while doing animation."''<ref>{{cite book |title=Indian Art: Inventing |author=Bhupen Khakhar |author-link=Bhupen Khakhar |publisher=Vadehra Art Gallery|year=2010|isbn=978-8187737223 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=TOyaQwJynsQC&q=Ganesh+Pyne&pg=PA12 }}</ref> He was also known as "painter of darkness", for using dark colours like black and blue and motifs suggesting death, and death, pain and solitude remained consistent themes in his work.<ref>{{cite news|title=Ganesh Pyne, top Indian artist, dies from heart attack|url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-21751555|accessdate=13 March 2013|newspaper=BBC News|date=12 March 2013}}</ref> The art critic [[Ranjit Hoskote]] termed him "a poet of melancholia", who "explored elements of the subconscious; the mercenary, the demons and the angels were aspects of the self split from his waking reality"<ref name=teh/> while [[Pritish Nandy]] described his paintings as having "a meticulous narrative quality[...]that is taken from the dark innards of his imagination". The celebrated painter [[MF Hussain]] once told the [[Illustrated Weekly of India]] that Pyne was India's best artist.<ref name="guardian" />

==Awards and recognition==
Pyne was given Raja Ravi Varma award by the [[Government of Kerala]], and in 2011, the lifetime achievement award by the Indian Chamber of Commerce.<ref>{{cite news|title=Legendary painter Ganesh Pyne passes away|url=http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/news/legendary-painter-ganesh-pyne-passes-away/article4500908.ece|accessdate=12 March 2013|newspaper=Business Line|date=12 March 2013}}</ref>

A 1998 documentary film on him, ''A Painter of Eloquent Silence: Ganesh Pyne'' directed by [[Buddhadeb Dasgupta]] was awarded the [[National Film Award (India)|National Film Award]] for the [[National Film Award for Best Arts/Cultural Film|Best Arts Film]].<ref name="46thawardPDF">{{cite web|url=http://dff.nic.in/2011/46_nff_1999.pdf|title=46th National Film Awards|publisher=[[Directorate of Film Festivals]]}}</ref>

== Exhibitions and shows ==
* 'World Youth Festival', Prague-1968
* Indian International Triennial, New Delhi-1968 & 71
* Paris Biennial, Paris-1970
* Exhibition in aid of Menuhin School of Music, Royal Academy of Arts, London-1970
* International Festival of Art, Cagnes-sur-Mer-1975
* 'Modern Indian Painting', Hirschhorn Museum, Washington DC-1982
* 'Contemporary Indian Art', Festival of India, Royal Academy of Arts, London-1982
* 'Indische Kunst Heute', Darmdstadt, Germany-1982 & 86
* 'Trends and Images', CIMA Gallery, Calcutta-1993
* 'Chamatkar – Myth and Magic in Indian Art', curated by CIMA Gallery, Whiteleys Art Gallery, London-1996
* 'Tryst with Destiny – Art from Modern India', Singapore Art Museum, Singapore-1997
* 'Image beyond Image' travelling exhibition of Indian paintings from the Glenbarra Art Museum, Himeji, Japan to New Delhi, Calcutta, Bangalore and Bombay-1997.
* 'Germinal', solo show of jottings, curated by Arun Ghose at [[India Art Fair]] 2014, New Delhi by Sanchit Art-2014.

== Books on Pyne ==

* ''Thirst of a Minstrel: The Life and Times of Ganesh Pyne'' by Shiladitya Sarkar. Publisher: Rupa & Co. (November 2004)
* ''Ganesh Pyne: A Pilgrim in the Dominion of Shadows'' by Ranjit Hoskote. Publisher: Galerie 88, Kolkata (2005)
* ''Enchanted Space: The Private World of Ganesh Pyne'' by Sovon Som. Publisher: CIMA (2006)
* ''Ganesh Pyne, his life and times by Ella Datta''. Publisher: Centre for International Modern Art (1998)
* {{cite book|last=Ghose|first=Arun|title=Jottings as Paintings of Ganesh Pyne|date=30 January 2014|publisher=Sanchit Art Publications|location=New Delhi|isbn=978-81-926373-1-0}}

==References==
{{reflist|2}}
* {{cite news|title=His dark materials |author=Indrajit Hazra |url=http://www.hindustantimes.com/editorial-views-on/IndrajitHazra/His-dark-materials/Article1-1027584.aspx |publisher=Hindustan Times |date=16 March 2013 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130318231649/http://www.hindustantimes.com/editorial-views-on/IndrajitHazra/His-dark-materials/Article1-1027584.aspx |archive-date=18 March 2013 |df=dmy }}

== External links ==
* [https://indiearts.in/product/ganesh-pyne-2/ Ganesh Pyne Paintings - Indiearts]
* [http://www.saffronart.com/artists/ganesh-pyne Ganesh Pyne Profile and Artworks – Saffron Art]
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20070430224829/http://www.contemporaryindianart.com/ganesh_pyne.htm Ganesh Pyne profile at Contemporary Indian Art]
* [http://art.prinseps.com/tag/ganesh-pyne/ Ganesh Pyne at Prinseps]
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Pyne, Ganesh}}
[[Category:1937 births]]
[[Category:2013 deaths]]
[[Category:Indian male painters]]
[[Category:Government College of Art & Craft alumni]]
[[Category:University of Calcutta alumni]]
[[Category:Artists from Kolkata]]
[[Category:Bengali male artists]]
[[Category:Abstract painters]]
[[Category:20th-century Indian painters]]
[[Category:Indian Expressionist painters]]
[[Category:Painters from West Bengal]]

Ganesh Pyne - Revision history

>PrimeBOT at 16:50, 21 March 2021