Abanindranath Tagore

Abanindranath Tagore is one of the founders of modern Indian painting. The artist, who was born in Calcutta (now Kolkata), firmly rejected the academic realism that was taught in the British art schools in the early twentieth century and instead adopted a deliberately Indian visual style inspired by Mughal miniature painting, Rajput court painting and the aesthetic principles of East Asia. He was born in 1871 into the prominent Thakur (Tagore) family at the Jorasanko Mansion. His father was Gunendranath Tagore and his mother Saudamini Devi; he was also the nephew of the famous poet Rabindranath Tagore. Having first studied under European tutors, his artistic direction was changed after he came into contact with the art administrator E. B. Havell. In 1907 he established the Indian Society of Oriental Art and, as the principal architect of the Bengal school, he created for nationalist India its most lasting visual symbol in the image of Bharat Mata and, through many years of teaching and writing, developed the vocabulary of twentieth-century Indian art.

Read more about them