작품 상세

Somnath Hore, Indian 1921-2006- Baul Tagore standing; Clay, sculpture, 26.5 cm high. Provenance: The Private Collection of Niladri and Ranu Chaki Rabindranath Tagore disseminated Baul ideology. The primitive simplicity and freedom of Baul thought and living charmed him so completely that he started imbibing them in his own lifestyle. He grew his hair long, kept a flowing beard and wore loose robes. He created Baul like characters in his plays and dance dramas and enacted the roles himself. And, as he grew older, a restlessness; an inability to stay in one place took hold of him. Leaving the ancestral mansion of Jorasanko he relocated to Santiniketan but even there he could not stay in the same house for more than two months. In the last two and half decades of his life, a tremendous wanderlust seized him. He travelled extensively both within the country and without, earning for himself the sobriquet of ‘roving ambassador for India’. Note: Born in Chittagong (now Bangladesh), Somnath Hore was a renowned Indian sculptor and printmaker whose work responded to the social and political upheavals of 20th-century Bengal, including the 1943 Bengal Famine and the Tebhaga movement. Influenced by Socialist Realism and German Expressionism, and inspired by artists like Käthe Kollwitz and Chittaprosad Bhattacharya, Hore developed a deeply humanistic visual language. A contemporary of K.G. Subramanyan and Ramkinkar Baij, his art is celebrated for its emotional intensity and social conscience. He was awarded the Padma Bhushan for his contributions to Indian art.