(1910-1979)
Sunil Madhav Sen was in West Bengal, 1910, he was a self-taught artist. Sen learned drawing as a child from a local teacher. He was influenced by Bengal school of art and Shantiniketan style. He studied law and liberal arts at Calcutta University and later worked in the government, alongside his legal career, Sen was deeply passionately about the art. He visited the studios of Abanindranath Tagore, Atul Bose, J. P. Gangooly, and Satish Sinha. He also trained for two years under Hemendranath Mazumdar to improve his skills in painting portraits.
Sen's artistic style changed as time passed. At first, he used ideas from old Indian art and mixed them with new Western modernism. At the same time, he creates a new, modern style by combining these traditional elements with contemporary ideas. Sen worked in various mediums such as, oils, watercolours, temperas, mixed media, drawings and sketches. Sen often painted scenes from rural Bengal, showing daily life with a sense of closeness and simplicity, using strong lines and bright colors to show the liveliness of the landscapes and the feelings of the people he painted. His paintings also often explored stories from mythology, mixing ideas from traditional stories and spirituality into his art.
In his search for a modern artistic style, experimented with both Western and Indian techniques to develop his own unique expression. The calm and simple beauty in his art reflects the deep, inward nature of his consciousness. His journey from academic naturalism to Indian folk traditions, while incorporating European, Cubism and Expressionism, helped him create a blend that represents Indian modernity.
Sunil Madhav Sen passed away in 1979.
