Benode Behari Mukherjee was born in Behala, Bengal on February 7, 1904. Unable to pursue formal education (he was blind in one eye and myopic in the other), he joined Tagore’s experimental school for children – the Patha Bhavan in Shantiniketan at the age of 12. When Kala Bhavan was established in 1919, he was its second student; in his later years, he returned to his alma mater as a faculty member. Alongside his teacher, Nandalal Bose and colleague, the master sculptor Ramkinkar Baij, Mukherjee influenced many prominent artists of the 20th century including Satyajit Ray and KG Subramanyan!Like other Santiniketan artists who were setting the foundation for an artistic vision that exchanged elite concerns for subaltern views, Benode Behari Mukherjee turned to the environment immediately around him for his inspiration. His studies of people going about their daily tasks—somewhat removed in theme from his large-sized murals—are expressive and resonate with colour: the latter perhaps because he was visually challenged from early in his life. The expressionistic strokes are another attribute of the Santiniketan artists of the time.
Benode Behari Mukherjee is regarded as a modern Indian art pioneer who contributed significantly to the evolution of Contextual Modernism. His works demonstrate a refined awareness to the environment, expressed through creative architectural aspects, and he was one of the first artists in modern India to use mural painting as a primary method of expression. As I've seen in his earlier works, he frequently uses the same color palette: green, yellow, and red. Artists of early twentieth-century contemporary art, particularly the Expressionism movement, frequently used vivid, saturated colors like green, yellow, and red in non-naturalistic ways. The emphasis was not on realistic reproduction, but on emotion, abstraction, and aesthetic effect. I’ve also founded that this piece is likely managed by the Vadehra Art Gallery, which handles the artist's estate, though it's hard to be 100% certain since many of his sketches are in private collections.
