Shuvaprasanna: A Man for all Seasons attempts to bring together the complete oeuvre of the versatile modern Indian artist Shuvaprasanna Bhattacharya, in a single volume. The book also traces his life and career and the significant events that shaped his artistic sensibilities.
This volume features Shuvaprasanna’s multifaceted work, be it painting, drawing, portraiture, printmaking, illustrations, installations, sculpture and murals, through his artistic timeline, and his contributions as a socio-political activist in building cultural institutions. Shuva-da, as he is popularly known, was actively involved with the Calcutta Painters Group in the 1970s; he founded the College of Visual Arts in 1975 and thereafter the vibrant and internationally known ArtsAcre Foundation in 2008.
The in-depth textual description of the artist’s creative evolution is accompanied by images of over 80 of Shuvaprasanna’s impactful artworks from different phases of his career, including paintings of the city of Kolkata, to his signature charcoal drawings of birds, to his latest collection, ‘The Mystique of the Epic’, which comprises striking depictions of characters and episodes from the Mahabharata.
Through her interpretive commentary the author shows that Shuvaprasanna’s articulation about culture, his insatiable child-like curiosity, fascination with the ‘City of Joy’, impressive warm persona and inquisitive mind, make him a man for all seasons.
This book would be of interest to art lovers, students of modern Indian art and the general reader with a penchant for creativity.