B. C. Sanyal

Bhabesh Chandra Sanyal commonly known as B. C. Sanyal (22 April 1902 – 9 August 2003), the doyen of modernism in Indian art, was an Indian painter and sculptor and an art teacher to three generations of artists. During his lifetime he not just saw the partition of the Indian subcontinent three times, 1905, 1947 and 1971, but also witnessed 20th century Indian art in all its phases. His notable paintings include The flying scarecrow, Cow herd, Despair and Way to peace, which depicts Mahatma Gandhi with a Hindu and a Muslim child.

He was awarded the Padma Bhushan in 1984, and India's highest award in visual arts, the Lalit Kala Akademi Fellowship for lifetime achievement by Lalit Kala Akademi, India's National Academy of Fine Arts in 1980.

Born in 1902 in Dibrugarh in a Bengali Family, he witnessed the Partition of Bengal in 1905, while still a child. Though tragedy struck early, when he lost his father at six-year, and was brought up by his mother, who had penchant for making dolls, which shaped the sculptor in him.

He later studied at Government College of Art & Craft (GCAC), Calcutta, where he was a student of teachers like Percy Brown and J.P. Ganguly.

In 1920, he joined the Serampore College of Art, where he spent the following six years practising and teaching painting and sculpture. During this period he has neither subscribed to the Bengal school nor sided with the Victorian academism, but evolved his own individualistic style, which got him noticed

The turning point in his career however came in 1929, when he was commissioned by Punjabi firm, Krishna Plaster Works to go to Lahore to make a bust of recently martyred leader, Lala Lajpat Rai, ahead of Lahore Session of Indian National Congress. He stayed back as other commissions followed, and soon became vice-principal of the Mayo School of Arts, Lahore (now known as National College of Arts), which was earlier started by Lockwood Kipling (father of author Rudyard Kipling). Here two of his students Satish Gujral and Krishen Khanna went on to become prominent modernists of the post-independence period. He remained at Mayo till 1936, when he was forced to resign as the British Raj viewed him as a "trouble-maker".

Subsequently, he set up the Lahore College of Art in 1937, a studio-cum-school, initially at the premises of the Forman Christian College, at the invitation of its first Indian principal, Dr. S.K. Dutta. The school was later formally inaugurated in a basement at the Dayal Singh Mansions, with an exhibition of prominent artists from Lahore, of the period. He continued to freelanced and taught here, till 1947.

After the partition of India, Sanyal and his wife Snelata, a ghazal singer and theatre person, moved to Delhi, where he stayed for the rest of his life. Here he set up base in the 26, Gole Market. This "refugee studio" soon became a hub for artists and students in Delhi, and later gallery 26. Soon it gave rise to the Delhi Shilpi Chakra (Delhi Sculptor Circle), which he founded along with a number of artist-friends (Dinkar Kowshik, K.S Kulkarni, Jaya Appasamy, Shankar Pillai, Kanwal Krishna, P.N Mago, etc.) had an important influence on the contemporary art in the North India. He showed at the Salon de Mai, Paris in 1949, and also participated in the Venice Biennale (1953); in the same year he joined as Professor and Head of the Department of Art, Delhi Polytechnic, Kashmiri Gate, (1953–1960), now upgraded to the College of Art.